
Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car - dsr12
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/tesla-is-working-on-robotic-snakes-that-emerge-from-the-wall-to-charge-your-car/
======
beltex
This was originally mentioned by Elon back in October at the launch of the
Dual Motor Model S and Autopilot event. It was in reference to the cars new
ability to park itself.

 _“Something I’d like to do, which I think many of our engineers will be
hearing this in real-time, is have the charge connector plug itself in. Like
an articulating, like sort of a snake, like Metal Gear Solid or something.”_

[http://youtu.be/FZ6lZJWL_Xk?t=9m23s](http://youtu.be/FZ6lZJWL_Xk?t=9m23s)

~~~
hardwaresofton
"like Metal Gear Solid or something". My man-crush on this guy is only getting
worse (better?).

Realistically though, why not just have some sort of hard-arm extend? why the
flexibility of a snake? with a little bit of OCR and an arm that can extend in
length and rotate on an axis, it seems like you could get pretty close

~~~
nkozyra
Because then you'd have to park inline with the charger? A "snake" would give
you some leeway.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Having the car park inline with a charger is a much easier problem to solve
than getting a charger to start from the ground and find it's way up to a car.

They could have the driver pull up into a generalized box/circle, and move the
car forward automatically (polling with a laser (or OCR on the side of the
charger) until it was in the perfect spot to be reachable.

If cars can parallel park themselves, I think they can manage pulling up a
given amount of feet.

Also a little rotation on the car-facing end of the charger would help.

------
acd
This seems way to complicated why not just have a device under your car that
injects the power socket. Like for example park the front wheels on a platter
that by the weight of the car injects the socket.

~~~
gfodor
How is this less complicated? In your case you'd need to install something
non-standard connected to high voltage power in the floor of your garage and
then have to carefully park your car every time. It'd be expensive and tricky
to install, and impose a mental burden every single time you park your car.
Not to mention that it would have moving parts that are often put under strain
(particularly in those instances where you don't park correctly) and it would
be prone to damage and wear.

I believe the idea here is that this robotic snake idea should have zero
impact on the user, and zero impact on installation, it should be a swap out
replacement for the current charger. The only difference being that the user
no longer has to plug it in manually. It may be a complex engineering problem
but it's a simple, elegant design solution.

~~~
josephwegner
I believe you're over-thinking it. You don't need to install it in your floor,
you could simply place it on top of your floor.

And it's not that hard to make it easy for people to line up - modern docks
use a sort of fuzzy connector that doesn't need to lock in perfectly, just as
long as you are within a certain range.

The roomba is the best example that I can think of for this - I can pretty
much set my roomba down anywhere roughly on the dock, and it will start
charging. I could definitely park my car with the same accuracy.

~~~
cmsmith
The roomba achieves this through rather large contact pads on the base of the
charger, which scaled up to car-size would be about 50cm across. What happens
when my cat walks under my car and onto a large metal plate with a few kW of
power flowing through it?

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awch
OC Robotics makes one such system, although it's used primarily for
observing/cleaning in tight spaces.

Pretty neat to watch:
[http://youtu.be/_gU6TWGynkU?t=28s](http://youtu.be/_gU6TWGynkU?t=28s)

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revscat
Is there any existing tech that even approaches this? Tesla cars are an
evolution and improvement upon tech that previously existed. Ditto Space X.
But I'm not aware of anything that even approaches Doc Ock-like articulating
cables/hoses that are able to overcome the force of gravity.

~~~
Rezo
Yes, take a look at this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gU6TWGynkU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gU6TWGynkU)

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xasos
> Btw, we are actually working on a charger that automatically moves out from
> the wall & connects like a solid metal snake. For realz. > This can be used
> with all existing Model S cars, not just futures ones. [1]

Boy, do the Holiday gifts keep coming. While this won't necessarily solve a
ton of problems, it will definitely be interesting to see what he can come up
with. This would be super cool to see in action.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/550297471289552898](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/550297471289552898)

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logfromblammo
It's nice to have goals, but I can't help thinking that the incremental
improvement of this over just plugging in a dumb cable by hand is not going to
be as large as some of the other things Tesla could be working on.

It also seems like this sort of thing would be making the business less
focused as an electric car company.

So if anything, it should be a cable that emerges from the car to plug into an
appropriate power socket, not the other way around.

~~~
waterlesscloud
It's just a step along the way to the endgame of the having on-the-road
refueling, with Tesla refueling stations endlessly roaming the highways and
plugging into Tesla passenger vehicles without even slowing down.

(You can't rule it out, can you? Heh.)

~~~
elsewhen
Inductive chargers within the road may be the endgame:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129534.900-wireless-...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129534.900-wireless-
charging-for-electric-vehicles-hits-the-road.html#.VKQpYhKCOnM)

------
prawn
Someone could do this for regular laptop hookups _eventually_. e.g. Every
morning at the office, I connect a power cable, monitor cables and a mouse.

~~~
Retric
They have been around for 20+ years.

It's called a laptop Base station / Docking station. There on a fairly wide
range of buissness laptops sadly that's one of the ports that Apple does not
seem to support.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_station)

~~~
gfodor
The advantage of a solution like this is that you don't have to find the cable
(or in the case of a docking station, the place to put the laptop), the cable
finds you. So you could put your laptop down anywhere in the office, and in
theory, a cord would eventually wind its way over to you to plug itself in.

~~~
samatman
By design, such an object would have the power and capacity to strangle you in
your sleep, lacking only appropriate software.

Is this truly a convenience?

~~~
hueving
>Is this truly a convenience?

Yes, and stop sleeping at your desk. :)

------
rebootthesystem
This is neat tech, of course. I am not criticizing when I ask: Isn't this a
solution without a problem?

How hard is it to get out of the car and plug in the charge cord?

Then there's the question of simple alternatives to a highly complex and
potentially dangerous robotic solution. Think children in the garage.

Without thinking too hard the first thing that comes to mind is something like
the contact rods that electric trams use. These could come out of the top or
bottom of the car and make contact with suitably designed safe power delivery
system.

Another option would be something like the jacks used to lift Formula 1 cars
during pit stops.

Yet another would be a "docking station" you literally drive into, with
contacts that connect through the front of the car. With self-driving Teslas
this could be symbiotic.

Finally, something like the rig used to refuel jets in flight (probably too
complex but I thought I throw it on the table).

I could also see something like a one meter diameter coil assembly that
normally lays flat on the ground. When the car parks on top of it the
motorized assembly comes up and couples with a matching coil on the bottom of
the car for power transfer without exposed high voltage connectors.

In the end I go back to: how hard is it to plug in a cord? Have we gotten that
lazy?

~~~
rebootthesystem
...and with almost absolute predictability anything that even remotely
challenges Musk/Tesla is down-voted on HN.

This is a legitimate question. This robotic snake problem is solving a problem
that does not exist.

And, please, don't invoke the handicapped card as someone already did. They
manage just fine today. Anyone, handicapped or not, who qualifies to drive a
car can handle plugging a cord into a socket. A 7 year old kid can do it.

So why throw a $30,000+ robot at a non-existing problem. I'll tell you why:

Musk understands marketing. With oil prices so low and nothing significant
coming out of Tesla they all but evaporated from public view. There is/was no
news to be had about Tesla. The SUV is tanking. That's a non-story. So, how do
we get people talking about Tesla again. We put out outrageous-yet-brilliant-
sounding futuristic ideas that are easy to consume by the average Joe and blog
writers can parrot liberally. Musk/Tesla sound like geniuses and the general
public doesn't even take a millisecond to apply critical thinking to what they
just read.

The ONLY way a complex robotic auto-charge system might have a tenuous level
of applicability is in the context of self driving cars AND "driven" by people
so extremely handicapped that they would not be allowed to drive a car today.
In other words, paraplegic, severe Parkinsons or other ailments.

That scenario is decades away. And, even then, a simple drive-on docking
station would be far cheaper, reliable and easier to install than some kind of
a robotic snake rig.

I love technology as much as anyone on HN and i have been involved in
industrial and educational robotics my entire adult life. Yet, I have to be
honest with myself and not treat everything like a nail just because I have a
hammer.

So Tesla will sell you a $30,000 robotic snake for your $80,000 car while
Toyota will probably sell you a $3,000 floor-mounted docking station for their
$30,000 car. And so will all other manufacturers. Because it makes sense.

~~~
jobposter1234
I think the reason you got downvoted is not that you criticized Musk, but the
tone of your comment is inappropriate for this forum. Your comment reads as
though it were written by a blowhard who is not only too certain of their own
perspective, but also not interested in having a discussion to learn more.

------
pearjuice
Cannot wait for Rule 34 to come into effect.

edit: I mean that it would be interesting to see this technology getting used
for creative purposes. I hope Tesla will be permissive in people adapting
their technology and not - if it is real - put it behind a massive patent and
licensing wall before anyone can put their hands on it.

~~~
beltex
[http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-
yo...](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you)

:)

------
Goonbaggins
The article references a tweet and then fails to quote it or even link to it.

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/550297471289552898](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/550297471289552898)

~~~
revscat
What device are you using? In Chrome/Mac there are two separate tweets that
are embedded. Capped part of my screen:

[http://imgur.com/vErhZ5a](http://imgur.com/vErhZ5a)

~~~
Goonbaggins
Interesting, AdBlockPlus in OSX Firefox was blocking them.

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shirro
They need a really big version of this to refuel a barge landed F9 for a hop
back to land so they don't have to waste so much fuel on boost back or risk
people out on the autonomous barge.

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ape4
Cool, but its not exactly taxing to get out of the car to plug it in.

~~~
genericresponse
Yes, but unlike a gasoline powered car the typical "penalty" for forgetting to
"refill" it is higher. If you forget to plug the car in on the wrong day, you
might be stuck for upwards of 30 min waiting for it to charge. That's
compounded with the fact that there are comparatively few charging stations
available outside of home. Contrast this with a car where if I forget to fill
it up the night before I lose 5-10 min and can find a gas station at least
every few miles.

~~~
greglindahl
The forgetting problem can be solved with an app: "Hey! I notice you've been
parked at home for 10 minutes and aren't plugged in..."

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steve_taylor
Says robots will kill us all, builds robot tentacles.

~~~
plorg
Don't forget, the robots can now also plug themselves in.

