back to article ROBO-TENTACLE with mind of its own wields deadly electrical power – turns on Tesla car

Tesla may be more bluster than business, but you can't help but admire the fact that it is constantly pushing car engineering. And today that admirable trait comes in the form of what appears to be an automated charger for its Model S car. The 37-second clip posted to its Twitter account shows a metallic prototype finding and …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Was thinking about this the other week

    Was thinking about this the other week while inflating my car tyres at the local Tesco and I was wondering to myself how long it would be until we had cars and services where you could simply pull up beside a pump, and not only would it locate your fuel filler port and fill up the tank by itself, but it would also locate your tyres and inflate them to the relevant pressured based on some kind of QR code, and maybe there would even be a small secondary port next to the petrol inlet, which could be used to automatically top up your wiper fluid and antifreeze at the same time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Was thinking about this the other week

      A long time, to be honest. You can achieve the same end by paying an immigrant minimum wage to fill your tank etc, but we don't find that small cost to be worth it, we'd rather do it ourselves and save a couple of quid. So an automated system is going to have to be cheaper even than a Bulgarian before that's going to happen. One day perhaps, but not soon.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Was thinking about this the other week

        But with the automated system you neither have to do it yourself nor interact with the Bulgarian. A small price to pay?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't help feeling the closing questions are all a bit pointless and negative. It's possible the Telsa engineers aren't the sharpest tools in the box but I have a feeling they will probably address all of those issues and a lot none of us have thought of. Here's my guesses at "fixes"

    This assumes the charger and the car will have some means of communicating.

    1) If the charger is plugged in the car will prevent itself from moving. This doesn't even need communication capability just switch in the charging port. Don't forget this is a problem with dinosaur powered cars too.

    2) Either the driver will walk around the car to the boot or they will press the disengage button on the charging arm (yes, there will be one)

    3) I'd guess they would make the port open automatically, the system would have limited use otherwise.

    4) Professional, it's a high power charging port.

    5) I doubt it'll have enough strength to hurt anyone seriously.

    6) Bumpers on the end of the charging arm maybe.

    1. Eddy Ito
      Alert

      The unasked question

      What happens when the driver is bent over looking for something in the back of the car and the automatic charger inadvertently plugs in to the wrong uhh, lets go with - port? I mean besides the obvious contusion to the back of the skull resulting from the collision with the open boot lid immediately following said attempted plug insertion.

      1. Sykobee

        Re: The unasked question

        I would suggest not walking around your garage naked with a circular LED light in your bumcrack, for a start.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The unasked question

          Every good photographer has seen a ring flash at some point in their career

      2. macjules

        Re: The unasked question

        And that brings us to the next question: how long before the pr0n industry expresses interest? Can think of several peers who must already be excited at the prospect of a robotic FUFME ...

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: The unasked question

          how long before the pr0n industry expresses interest?

          can the pr0n industry do for the electric car business what they did for the video recorders and the internet and drive down the cost?

      3. TeeCee Gold badge
        Coat

        Re: The unasked question

        You mean one software glitch and you're buggered?

      4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: The unasked question

        "They don't like it up 'em!"

        "Don't panic!"

  3. streaky

    There are of course a lot of things to consider before such a charger could be added to your house:

    Is "Why are you not buying a hydrogen car?" one of them?

    1. Rich 11

      Re: There are of course a lot of things to consider before such a charger could be added

      And "How likely am I to be throttled in my sleep by this incipient Robosquid of Electric Doom?"

    2. Mark 85

      Re: There are of course a lot of things to consider before..(title too long per El Reg - shortened.)

      Boom!!!!!! Might be a good answer but seriously...no H cars or fill stations available in my area. I thought they were still testing in places like Southern Calif.

    3. Stevie

      Is "Why are you not buying a hydrogen car?" one of them?

      Not for me. The prospect of opening my metal garage door, causing a small spark and hearing the neighbours scream "Oh the humanity!" as I fly through the air sans eyebrows is a disincentive.

      That and the lack of Hydrogen pumps in my area.

  4. cynthb

    Hentai jokes will abound...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hentai jokes will abound

      It does look rather as if the car should start writhing around in ecstasy at some point, doesn't it?

      I can't help thinking this is technology for the sake of it, a relatively simple rectangular frame with a carriage with X and Y translators and a Z for the probe, with some kind of flexibility in the end to adjust for slight angle changes ought to be enough. But it wouldn't cause the friends of the proud owner to freak out so much.

      1. notowenwilson

        Re: Hentai jokes will abound

        Most of Musk's engineering is based around the idea of "we could have done it cheap and just-good-enough but instead we did it more expensive and awesome". He's in the business of pushing technology forward rather than just doing the bare minimum needed to achieve a task.

        1. Little Mouse

          RE: "instead we did it more expensive and awesome"

          Make the arm fully retractable, Inspector Gadget style.

          That'd be pretty cool.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Overlap

    Looks like he's getting mixed up between the tesla charging port and automated docking with the ISS (they currently grab the dragons with a robot arm, rather than letting them dock on their own)

    Bravo.

  6. Will Wykeham

    He did say he was going to do it in October 2014 (see pg 307 of Ashlee Vance's biog).

    Doesn't even have to be for home use - I'd imagine it would get rolled out to supercharger stations first.

    And is there going to be any in cockpit guidance to confirm you're in the range of the tentacle?

    1. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip

      "And is there going to be any in cockpit guidance to confirm you're in the range of the tentacle?"

      Probably as that would be the trick high tech solution. The simple solution, just park within the white lines of the parking space.

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        I'm amazed how many people are incapable of parking within the white lines of the parking space in the carpark outside my local supermarket. Maybe it's because they have no real incentive to make an effort... or maybe it's because they are numptys.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rise of the Tentacle...

    They're coming and I for one etc. etc. ad-nauseum

  8. GrumpyOldMan

    It's a bit creepy...

    I find it a bit creepy. Maybe they'll put it on wheels and it'll find your Tesla and insert all on it's own? Dependent on the length of the power cable obviously. Have a vertical drop cable maybe?

  9. hatti

    Be great if

    while ($charge == 'flatFuckingBattery') {

    //It had a robo voice going...

    print '...step away from the tentacle...CHARGING...step away from the tentacle...CHARGING...etc.'

    }

  10. A Nonny Moose
    Gimp

    Watching that video brought back some disturbing memories of some Japanese videos I watched once

  11. John Sturdy
    Boffin

    Put all the machinery in the car, so it goes where the car goes

    I'd be more impressed with an arm that extends from inside the charging point, with a high-current plug on the end, and plugs itself into a socket that way. Or even, as a last resort, have a local domestic mains plug on the end of the arm, and plug itself into any wall socket it can see.

    Then the car wouldn't have to be positioned in such an expensively equipped specific place, to be able to get itself charged automatically.

    1. John 110

      Re: Put all the machinery in the car, so it goes where the car goes

      @john sturdy (edited to say "you sod, you edited your original post - now I look stupid!!")

      "I'd be more impressed with an arm that extends from inside the charging point, grabs a charging lead that it spots lying around, and plugs itself in that way."

      If it was a USB lead, the tentacle would have to be capable of turning the plug over the requisite 3 times to find the right way up...

  12. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    How long before

    it starts asking for Sarah Connor?

    Now where did I leave that phased plasma rifle (in the 40 watt range)...?

  13. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    Funny really.

    That we've never really needed automatic petrol/diesel pumps.

    I guess that purchasers of combustion-engine equipped vehicles must be smart enough to remember to fill the ruddy things themselves most of the time.

    I suppose this proves that Teslas are only ever bought by the sort of rich, lazy twat who expects everything[1] to be done for him.

    [1] My rates for shagging trophy wives are very reasonable.

  14. Gene Cash Silver badge

    It's better than my Zero electric motorcycle. Plugging in the house charger is like plugging in a laptop, but if I want it to charge in less than a decade, sticking my hand up its ass to for the high power charge port is like birthing a calf.

  15. chr0m4t1c

    So here's what El Reg missed while doing background research

    This is intended for installation with domestic Tesla chargers.

    It's intended for use in conjunction with their Autopilot system and an automatic garage door; you park on your driveway, then use the Tesla app on your phone to tell the car to put itself in the garage at which point it also puts itself on charge.

    When you want to go out, you can tell the car to meet you on the driveway.

    If you sync your calendar with the car it will even pre-warm or cool the interior and be ready for you 15 minutes before you have to leave - even checking the prevailing traffic conditions and letting you know to leave early if necessary.

    Yes, there are a million things that could go wrong and a million scenarios (particularly in the UK) where you just can't make use of this technology, but I still think it's pretty cool if they can get it working.

    Personally, I have two immediate problems with this,

    a) I can't afford a Tesla

    b) I don't have a driveway

  16. stairway

    Only a matter of time

    ... before Japan starts putting robotic tentacles in sex shops.

    Plug and play?

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