Tesla
11 HN mentions · mentioned in 10 months, 2015–2026
0:37 · 8.3M views · Aug 6, 2015
A one-minute Tesla clip showing a prototype robotic snake charger that finds a Model S's charge port and plugs itself in.
Brought up whenever robotic or automatic EV charging comes up, as the memorable 2015 demo that never became a product.
11 comments from Hacker News
This is what a pancake motor looks like.[1] Thin and flat. Wrong form factor for fitting into a wrist. Strings ("tendons") have their own problems. Wear at bearing points, mostly. You need an opposed pair, too. So there's a motor, a winding drums, and something like a spring to maintain tension. Or two motors and two winding drums, which gives better control. That's why snake robots have never caught on. They're good painting robots, because they can get into tight spots. But repetitive cycling wears the tendons at the same place on each cycle. There was a good application - Tesla's snake charging robot.[2] All the complicated stuff is in the pedestal, and you can surround that with concrete to prevent damage if it's hit by a car. The snake part has no motors, just discs and strings, plus the connector and probably a cell phone camera at the end. It can be made easily replaceable, like a gas station hose. But some people thought it was too creepy. [1] [LINK] [2] this video
The robotic arm that connects your Tesla to the charger Tesla demoed that in 2015, but didn't make it into a product.[1] Apparently too many people thought it was "creepy". (That's a good way to do the job. Snake arm robots are quite simple. The tube just contains some pull cables running through disks with holes.[2] All the motors are in the base. So you can build one of these with a protected base and an easily replaced arm tube. The usual problem with snake robots is that the cables wear out. But that's in painting applications, where they're in constant motion all day. A charging robot moves, slowly, for maybe one minute per hour. They're not very repeatable, which is fine in this application. The car won't be in the same place every time anyway. There's a TV camera in the end to find the socket. It's too bad that didn't ship as a product.) [1] this video [2] [LINK]
That's very good. Note lack of "we built an agricultural fruit-picking arm that can survive five years of picking". Remember Tesla's robotic charging arm? [1] That was a good idea. If Tesla ever gets unsupervised autonomous driving to work reliably in parking lots, that will be useful. Then cars can self-charge. (The snake arm seems complicated, but it's not. The arm is just segments, cables, and discs. The motors are all in the base. So this can be built in a way such that damaged arm replacement is about as hard as gas pump hose replacement. Snake arm robots are not used much because they have a wear problem where the cables go through the discs. But that's for painting robots, which move constantly. A charging robot makes maybe ten moves a day.) [1] this video
You need a Tesla robotic charger snake: this video :) (it's only a prototype for now). But no, it's not a huge issue. New cars seem to come with apps nowadays, so as you said your car can just send you a notification to your phone if you haven't plugged it in five minutes after arriving back home. And maybe another one if it's still not plugged in before you go to bed. Unavailability of charging (see sibling comment) is a bigger issue that won't be as easy to tackle. But reminding users to charge their car isn't what's hindering EV adoption. You can be late if you forget to fill up your petrol car, too. That can easily take ten minutes if there's a bit of a queue.
> "You will have some sort of docking station in your garage and when you park short-term the car flips the batteries for you with a loaded one" Are you serious? Tesla did this and presented a tech demo in 2013: [LINK] > "auto-plug itself and charges overnight. No cables, no mess." Another Tesla tech demo: this video Also, what do you mean "superchargers disappearing?". It seems that Tesla is way a head on a lot of things and it will take quite an effort/investment for the incumbents to catch up. Though in reality, wide EV adoption is a WIN for everybody and is actually the core mission of Tesla, which is to "Accelerate Sustainable Transport"