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Tesla Owner Makes 'Solid Metal Snake' Self-Charging System That Elon Musk Promised (theverge.com) 70

An anonymous reader writes: Nearly two years ago, Elon Musk teased us with a robotic snake that would automatically plug-in and charge your Model S. Well, many months have passed and there has yet to be an official "solid metal snake" available for Tesla owners. So, one Tesla owner decided to make his own autonomous charging station, as spotted by Electrek, that will automatically guide the Model S's charging cable into the waiting receptacle with no human intervention required. The inventor Deepak Mital posted a video showing how it works, and while it's incredibly slow, it does work. Compared to the demo video of the system teased by Elon Musk last year, this version appears much less threatening. Mital calls it the "Evtron," which is controlled with a Raspberry Pi and swings from one side to another before sliding forward to make the connection with the car.
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Tesla Owner Makes 'Solid Metal Snake' Self-Charging System That Elon Musk Promised

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  • by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @07:53PM (#52410141)

    That way we can make a Metal Gear / Solid Snake joke.

  • Nothing like a glaring typo in a headline.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Pretty slow is right. I would have thought he'd do something closer to the musk version, that is, pop the lid earlier, and use the light ring for all the movement, rather than an align-extend-pop-align-insert method.

  • by Latentius ( 2557506 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @08:12PM (#52410213)

    Nearly two years ago...

    The linked article isn't even one year old...

    For a second there, I thought I was crazy and losing track of time.

    • Whoops, guess they're just talking about the first off-hand mention of it, not the actual demonstation from less than a year ago.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I patented the idea years ago.

  • by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @08:43PM (#52410327)
    The snake design for Tesla's video is intentional, it's clearly designed for superchargers. And supercharger cables are very heavy and not really flexible, so if you attach them at only couple of points then you'll quickly get issues with wear and stress. A metal jointed snake can much easier redistribute the stress and also it can tolerate fault of a several joints.
    • The snake design for Tesla's video is intentional, it's clearly designed for superchargers. And supercharger cables are very heavy and not really flexible, so if you attach them at only couple of points then you'll quickly get issues with wear and stress. A metal jointed snake can much easier redistribute the stress and also it can tolerate fault of a several joints.

      Care to provide some specifics around your definition of "very heavy" here?

      I'm just curious if we need to start doing physicals at the dealership so that owners of these vehicles can actually charge the damn things. Do I need to be able to lift 50 pounds over my head or something?

      If it's far from being unwieldy, then I see this as yet another "solution" for a non-problem that lazy humans invented. Why is it that I keep envisioning a future where humans weigh on average 300+ pounds, all because their lives

  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @09:29PM (#52410507) Homepage

    It's about time, The are so difficult to plug in and it's so heavy.. I'm surprised most electric cars are ever plugged in the connectors are s obig and heavy and difficult to use.

    I'm calling bull on it being "automatic" that video is of someone off screen driving it. you can see reflections of a person off to the left monkeying with it and you can see it being very jerky as if a person is trying to get it adjusted right.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I know what you mean. I have a plug in hybrid, and when I get home from work I have to call 2-3 Mexicans to come over and help plug the fucking thing in. It's ridiculous how heavy these are, with their giant 200 pound connector. And if you don't line it up just right, the car AND the EV charger both explode and rain down fire and brimstone on everything within a 4 block radius. I can't believe the UL even approved this shit.

  • It took a Raspberry PI to do that? Nothing like buttery fly hunting with a flame thrower.
  • Unknown how it works, what is done to the mechanism, is it doing it by itself or is it hand-steered (looks like it) and what else is happening, how does the car light up and looking at the mirror images reflected on the car.....

    Mechanism is not shown, in particular, how the car receptacle is located etc.

    Way overblown and fake, as it looks.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @10:08PM (#52410633)
    The article states that it swings from the side and moves forward. But can it adjust up and down to find the charging plug precisely? I'm not being silly here, a Model S has considerable adjustment in the Z axis (driving low is great for feeling sporty and improving mileage, but riding higher can be important for protecting the batteries from speed bumps or other things that could cause serious problems). While you could tell the car to adjust to the highest setting whenever it gets home, I would rather see a snake that can just plug itself in no matter what the current car height is.
  • by Hylandr ( 813770 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @10:36PM (#52410719)

    Don't bend over to pick anything up in the garage, lest it bring 'user friendly' to new levels.

  • Would it take more than 5 seconds to just grab the plug by hand and stick it in the receptacle? Jesus Christ, how lazy are people?
    • With self driving cars, will soon come cars without passengers. Think long-haul trucks without drivers. Who's going to "refuel" these trucks for cross-country trips?

      Or consider the self-driving Uber (remember Johnny cab?). At some point during the day, it's going to need to recharge.

      Thinking about it that way, this makes a lot of sense. I'm OK with rich & lazy people paying for the R&D, and shaking out the bugs. Makes for a better product when it's down to my price point.

  • ...be careful of not having anything glowing attached to your pants, or the charging snake could be attired to you, and a very embarassing accident could happen!
  • The only maturity in the development of my sense of humor since high school, is that my propensity to spot dick jokes has taken an eerily transhumanist turn.
  • of someone else making everything Elon Musk blows hot air about.

  • one Tesla owner decided to make his own autonomous charging station...that will automatically guide the Model S's charging cable into the waiting receptacle... while it's incredibly slow, it does work.

    VOLTRON: [watching at home] No, no, that's good. I like it slow. Oh, yeah, baby. Slower.

  • I'm sure there's a gaming joke somewhere in there.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley

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