Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of Tesla’s Robovan on Thursday night time throughout the firm’s We, Robot event in Los Angeles. The Robovan shall be an electrical, autonomous automobile roughly the dimensions of a bus, designed for transporting folks round excessive density areas. It’s going to carry as much as 20 folks at a time and in addition transport items, based on Musk.
“We’re going to make this, and it’s going to appear to be that,” mentioned Musk on Thursday night time because the Robovan rolled in the direction of heart stage. That’s about as a lot as Musk was keen to say, and we’re not even certain that a lot is true.
Musk didn’t point out how a lot the Robovan would price, how Tesla would produce it, or when it can come out. Nonetheless, it does look fairly cool.
The Robovan has a retro-futuristic look – someplace between a bus from The Jetsons and a toaster from the Fifties. It options silver metallic sides with black particulars, and strips of sunshine operating parallel to the bottom alongside its sides, with doorways that slide out from the center. Inside, there are seats and room to face, with tinted home windows all through. There isn’t a steering wheel, because it’s autonomous.
“One of many issues we need to do – and we’ve accomplished this with the Cybertruck – is we need to change the look of the roads,” mentioned Musk. “The longer term ought to appear to be the long run,” he mentioned, repeating an previous line.
It seems to be just like different purpose-built robotaxis, like these designed by Zoox and Cruise. Solely Tesla’s van is way larger. In China, WeRide has constructed the same Robobus.
That mentioned, the Robovan confirmed on Thursday is simply a prototype. Regardless of what Musk says, there’s no telling what the true factor will appear to be or when it can really come out.
Tesla had saved the design of the autos it launched on Thursday fairly near the chest. The one actual trace we had was from Tesla’s 2023 Investor Day, when the automaker teased a few new autos that seemed to be designed for quantity manufacturing: One smaller automobile that seems now to be the Cybercab, and a bigger one which we will now say is probably going the Robovan.
The said aim on the time was to supply 20 million autos per yr by 2030. That might imply that Tesla wants to extend manufacturing and gross sales by about 15 instances from 2022.
Throughout Thursday’s occasion, Musk didn’t define any plans for constructing new manufacturing amenities or retooling current amenities to accommodate both the Cybercab or the Robovan. He additionally didn’t present a lot in the way in which of timelines for the Robovan, although he predicted the Cybercab would begin manufacturing in 2026 or 2027.
