A major electric vehicle company has made a variety of headlines this year alone. From news of CEO Elon Musk joining the White House, to the start of the much anticipated Robotaxi program, and lest we forget the controversial Cybertruck, Tesla has seen its fair share of limelight. In more recent news, Tesla has been working on an additional secret project, expanding their reach within the transportation sector while continuing to realign their focus towards automated driving.
Tesla continues to advance their technology
Since the release of the Roadster in 2008, Tesla has become a household name synonymous with electric engine technologies. The company is often attributed as the reason for the sudden rise in popularity of the electric engine and the rise in alternative engine technologies. In the US, Tesla continues to lead in electric engine sales, while globally, they continue to compete with China’s BYD, which has overtaken them for the top spot.
Thanks to the advanced battery technology of the company, their vehicles continue to be examples of futuristic technology for a world without the internal combustion engine. However, with nearly every major automobile company now offering their own electric vehicle model, Tesla has expanded their vision beyond the internal combustion engine, with projects planned to extend beyond the passenger vehicle and imagine a world with self-driving vehicles.
New Tesla model to remain hidden from the world
Recently, Tesla filed two trademark applications in the US. While the term ‘Robotaxi’ is familiar to the company, Tesla is now looking at patenting ‘Robobus’ for the use in electric vehicles, buses, and electrically powered buses, as well as for passenger transportation, time-based ridesharing services, peer-to-peer vehicle sharing, and temporary use of vehicles.
Last month, Tesla began their pilot project of the much anticipated Robotaxi project in Austin, Texas. The Cybercab project is currently experimenting with the logistics of Tesla offering an autonomous ride-share system. Currently, the pilot project is limited to Tesla employees within a limited operational zone.
The Robovan was first unveiled in October last year at the company’s ‘We Robot’ event, where Tesla showed off their latest autonomous vehicle projects. The reveal came as a surprise, as the Robotaxi was expected to be the main event of the show.
“What happens if you need a vehicle that’s bigger than a Model Y?” said Musk at the We Robot event
According to Musk, the Robovan would be intended for high-density usage, such as transporting sports teams. The prototype can accommodate up to twenty individuals. However, a release date has not yet been announced for the company for when the van will be available for commercialization as the company fine-tunes the project. The van is expected to be included as part of Tesla’s autonomous driving vision.
Tesla plans to change the world with autonomous driving
The next phase of Tesla’s journey appears to be heavily concentrated on making autonomous driving a reality. Currently, Tesla offers two autonomous driving packages: Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised). However, both of these technologies still require an alert and attentive driver. The Robotaxi project in Austin, Texas, is intended to advance this technology to the point where a driver will no longer be needed for Tesla vehicles.
However, Tesla will have to compete with the likes of BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle company that is offering not only competitive autonomous technology to consumers but also at a cheaper price point. Additionally, Tesla is not the only one investigating a future where passenger vehicles will no longer have drivers, with Alphabet-owned Waymo and Amazon-owned Zoox’s autonomous vehicle fleets also being piloted in Austin. What is certain, however, is that autonomous driving is set to become much more prevalent on the roads, and most likely sooner than we think.
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