Tesla, the electric carmaker founded by real-life Tony Stark Elon Musk, is doing things that would make its famous namesake scientist, Nikola Tesla proud. Not satisfied with revolutionizing online money payments, revolutionizing mass transit, revolutionizing space travel, Musk is set on revolutionizing the car industry too.
Last December, Musk tweeted that his company is working on technology that would allow chargers to snake out of the wall and plug into your car automatically, eliminating the need to manually connect when you get your Model S back to your garage at night. It sounded too futuristic to be true, which is to say, it sounded exactly like something Elon Musk would say.
Half a year later, turns out, they have succeeded. Musk tweeted this video late Thursday night, showing off their prototype robotic charger.
Tesla Snakebot autocharger prototype. Does seem kinda wrong 🙂 https://t.co/vXpCrKNdlV
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2015
It looks genuinely creepy and bizzare, watching this thing in action. It looks something like a metallic snake or worm, or even the human spine. And it behaves that way too. From its upright position, the pipe bends down in the direction of the Model S, and peers down gently, as if it were a reptile sniffing out its prey. But instead of the squawks and screams of a rodent, it just locks onto its port, the plug goes in, the blue LED circle around the socket contentedly purrs a flashing green… and end scene.
It is also weirdly sexual, if you are into that sort of thing.
This is what happens when Silicon Valley get around to making cars. Welcome our new robot overlords.