If they intend to enable fully autonomous fleet sharing with the year of Model3 then I'd say yes. It's a very elegant solution to the self charging option. The snake would be very expensive I'd imagine and prone to malfunctioning. Seems much simpler to have the call roll into a space and stop at a specific point and connect everything. Could use the existing sensors and cameras to be precisely in the right spot and bluetooth too like was mentioned. If the car launches without it you'll probably have to manually charge it if you're using the Tesla network. I just can't see the snakes being cost effective and reliable longterm.
Why is this a focus on their cars? Just because the patent shows a car in the diagram doesn't mean that's the intent. They have semi trucks being unveiled in September you know...
Would make sense for trucks indeed, although having a reliable and low maintenance automated recharging capability for the fleet of autimated cars would also have its advantages.
I think the snake will be the primary/preferred solution.
If they can't make it work (which is very unlikely, I see no unsolvable obstacles)
then belly connection is definitely going to work.
The reason snake should work is the fact that charging port position will also be
autonomously set - no driver error. Therefore snake can be simplified a lot.
And actually snake doesn't have to be snake. It can have just like 4-5 servos,
a few more than belly connection (3 servos)
I was imagining the snake could be stored in the upright position, inside a specially designed cupboard/cubby with an automatic sliding door. Similar to the original supercharger system that rotated out of the way for you to get the charging cable out. This way the weather stays out of the joints of the "snake" and more importantly out of the (now facing the skies) charging plug!
Car parks perfectly in place using AP2
Car sends bluetooth signal to charging station
sliding door opens on cupboard
charge port opens on car
snake lowers down into position and plugs into car.
My $140 robot vacuum can line up and charge itself. Tesla will have no problem figuring out a simple solution as well.
The autonomous car sharing fleet of the future demands it.
the beneath the car port sounds like it could be seriously super fast charging (with cooling which suggest its not your grandmother's old fashioned charging)
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