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by justanotherbody 3686 days ago
By this logic should we have autonomous refueling already?

After factoring in the cost of the robotics I suspect paying humans minimum wage is quite a bit cheaper. Especially given the diverse outdoor environments such a system would need to be maintained in
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Animats 3686 days ago
By this logic should we have autonomous refueling already?

It's been done a few times.[1][2] The systems are rather slow and clunky, but work. Dealing with all the variation between cars runs up the cost.

Tesla has a charging robot.[3] This is much easier, since Tesla controls both sides of the interface. The car actively cooperates, opening the charging port door. Tesla also interlocks the car so that you can't drive away while plugged in. I'm surprised that Tesla hasn't deployed those robot chargers yet.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y_J7fg03fA [2] http://mashable.com/2014/01/29/robotic-gas-pump/#hDxoRZBZ5Zq... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI

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icebraining 3686 days ago
They did deploy one station, between SF and LA. They say it has barely got any traffic, so they aren't planning to build any more. Others have pointed out that building the station was a requirement to get some CA tax benefit.
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gambiting 3686 days ago
There is no value in automated refueling - almost everywhere in the world drivers re-fuel their cars themselves, so there is no money to be saved by making this process automated. The only exception to this are some american states where you can't do it yourself by law.
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unclebucknasty 3686 days ago
Not really. There's not a lot of value in autonomous refueling when everything else about vehicle operation is manual.
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