this better not awaken anything in me.
Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
101–110 of 209 posts
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#102Definitely a PR move to compete with the simultaneous hacking story.
My thoughts too. I wonder if companies have stockpiled "good pr" stories that they release as needed.
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume the purpose is for a driver to just pull into the garage and have the charger hook up automatically, so a two-rail system would probably not be able to deal with the car being parked at a slight angle and not completely perpendicular to the plug.
The dead-simple solution for aligning the car is to make it drive onto alignment rails. Or, given that it can auto-park, just give it an auto-pump-align routine based on that. The true benefit of a "smart pump-side alignment" system, I think, is that it copes with different models of vehicles (e.g. EV SUVs, EV 18-wheelers, etc.), with their charging ports in different places and orientations.
Why make the driver adapt (driving onto rails, etc), when the charger can adapt?
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#104That is an interesting video to watch. I immediately imagine a self driving car, on its way to pick me up, swinging by this robot arm to charge up. I wonder if it would be possible for something like this to provide a charge while moving? Like airplanes that can be fueled in the air. I suspect the energy to keep the charger itself moving would make that a pretty inefficient way of doing things, but it's fun to imagin…
The weight of the battery needed to charge a Tesla at anything like a 'fast' rate would be huge ... there's no efficient way of then propelling such a heavy battery along without then needing even more heavy batteries or a big ICE engine. So nope. I think this is meant to complement the (as yet unreleased) Tesla can-park-itself-in-your-garage feature.
In stunt mode you could just gang several Model S batteries together (which would fit in the back of a pickup). I guess the idea isn't very practical though.
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#105I think Infiniti's induction charging concept seems much cooler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlYADNqxrPw
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just keep your mouth closed and it won't notice there's a socket to plug into. Once you start talking though, it may keep applying greater and greater force in a valiant attempt to insert the charger...
That's an awfully optimistic anatomical statement when we're talking about robotic snakes. Just saying.
I just realized that this is a "dual-use" technology, if you know what I mean.
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#107Can you imagine how pets are going to react to this? A real-world use-case involves this in a garage, and you pull into the garage (or tell the car to) and it parks and then this snake starts its dance and finds the chargeport and connects and starts charging... and your dog goes completely ape-shit. And barks and shrieks and jumps and snaps its teeth and gets a nice vise-grip with the snake in its jaws and next thin…
I doubt that any current is being passed through that snake until it has made a connection with the car. Then once it is charging it will be protected with an RCD, so your dog might live.
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet if you exposed another mammal like a monkey or a cat to that recharging tentacle, it would be frightened by it too. We are wired to be afraid of snakes and snaky things. It's one of the most common phobias. Sci-fi horror merely tapped into that fear.
> We are wired to be afraid of snakes and snaky things Are we really wired for it, though? I've personally never had that fear. Perhaps it's a little more nurture than nature?
"Experiment 1 results indicated that observer rhesus monkeys acquired a fear of snakes through watching videotapes of model monkeys behaving fearfully with snakes.
In Experiment 2, observers watched edited videotapes that showed models reacting either fearfully to toy snakes and nonfearfully to artificial flowers (SN+/FL-) or vice versa (FL+/SN-). SN+/FL- observers acquired a fear of snakes but not of flowers; FL+/SN- observers did not acquire a fear of either stimulus.
In Experiment 3, monkeys solved complex appetitive discriminative (PAN) problems at comparable rates regardless of whether the discriminative stimuli were the videotaped snake or the flower stimuli used in Experiment 2. Thus, monkeys appear to selectively associate snakes with fear."
Experiment 1 shows that monkeys become afraid of snakes through watching videos of other monkeys being afraid of snakes. Experiment 2 shows that monkeys don't acquire a fear of flowers if shown a video of other monkeys being afraid of flowers. Experiment 3 shows that monkeys can still be conditioned in other tasks using videos of either flowers or snakes.
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#109I hardly believe it's enough to justify the poor 2015 quarters financials
Re: Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake
#110The gif is sped up. This vid is actual speed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI I think it's awesome. But, it obvious that the current implementation will inspire the creeps in lots of people. Sci-fi horror has put an unfortunate bad rap on robotic tentacles and chromed vertebrae.
yeah I excitedly showed that to a friend sitting next to me and she straight up shrieked