Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of Tesla’s Robovan on Thursday night time throughout the firm’s We, Robotic occasion in Los Angeles. The Robovan shall be an electrical, autonomous car roughly the dimensions of a bus, designed for transporting folks round excessive density areas. It’ll carry as much as 20 folks at a time and in addition transport items, in response to 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 positive that a lot is true.
Musk didn’t point out how a lot the Robovan would value, how Tesla would produce it, or when it should come out. Nevertheless, 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 any steering wheel, because it’s autonomous.
“One of many issues we wish to do – and we’ve carried out this with the Cybertruck – is we wish 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 appears to be like just like different purpose-built robotaxis, like these designed by Zoox and Cruise. Solely Tesla’s van is far larger. In China, WeRide has constructed an analogous 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 should really come out.
Tesla had stored the design of the automobiles 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 automobiles that seemed to be designed for quantity manufacturing: One smaller car 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 provide 20 million automobiles per yr by 2030. That may 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 services or retooling present services 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.
