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Can You Sketch the Interior of the Tesla Bus as Described?
I think he may even have a context for his statement having grown up in South Africa, where the majority of public transport is done using Minibus Taxis. They have no central isle and while there is an isle of sorts that runs along the side of vehicle with the passenger door, a much higher percentage of floor space is used for seating.
Agree that perhaps it's a bus with multiple gull wing doors - allowing passengers to face outwards, and reducing width of bus. Also, since the batteries seem to be able to go very flat, consider this allows the seating height to be very low, so every seat could be ground accessible when the walls/gull wing doors are open. But bus access is limited to right side only and I wonder how efficient you can get with that system? Would like to see a comparison diagram.
As an industrial designer you should be more flexible when thinking about solutions, and do a bit more research before reaching conclusions.
1. While it's true that Musk can't be an expert in everything, he is not alone, Tesla products have shown that they are capable of great industrial design, creating some of the most innovative and functional cars in the industry. One would have to assume that before writing a piece that millions of people will read, and will be scrutinized by journalists for years, he worked with his industrial design team for months, maybe years. He didn't think about these ideas overnight, Tesla have been nurturing them for years. Give the team more credit than the 10 minutes you spent thinking about this.
2. There are a lot of historical examples on how this could work. And there are a lot of clues on Tesla's past work and future plans that can help us imagine how it might materialize.
Other people have already shown some historical examples in both SciFi and real world.
But we also have many more clues:
He talks about how autonomy and making buses smaller. This makes a lot of sense. If you don't need drivers then you are not limited to preset routes, you can create routes on-demand based on real time requests, this means more personalized routes that will tailor to less people. A big bus can fit around 50 people while one of those mini buses can fit around 16. If there is no driver that means 16 usable seats.
It can potentially fit more people if they are standing, something similar to an airport shuttle, but I believe full autonomy and personalized routes will allow for people to commute for long distances without switching buses, so sitting makes more sense.
He talks about plans to design a pickup truck, we've also seen how the Tesla X and Tesla S use the same platform. You can easily fit 16 seats in the same platform of a pickup truck.
A mini bus this size can be deployed in any city with minimal regulatory resistance. There are already circulating cars this size. As opposed to buses which require special permissions or are banned from some streets.
How do you get in and out? well, each row of seats would need to have an independent door, that means 4 doors on each side. Each door would need to open independently as to not open the whole side of the bus to pick up 1 or 2 persons. And Tesla developed the perfect door for this! Look at some of the properties of falcon wing doors:
A-They open up, so you can open any number of them simultaneously without bumping into the others.
B-They allow you to walk in, standing up.
C-They detect and avoid obstacles.
3. Safety. Mini buses are not very safe. Well, he is also dropping a clue by saying that autonomous vehicles will need to be 10X safer than their manual siblings. They can be optimized and be much safer than current cars and buses.
With the same information contained in the Master Plan v2 plus historical information about transportation design and Teslas own products and strategies we can reach a viable conclusion:
An autonomous mini-bus, with the same footprint as a pickup truck, able to transport ~16 people comfortably to personalized routes. With 4 falcon wing doors on each side to access each row of seats.
As an industrial designer you should be more flexible when thinking about solutions, and do a bit more research before reaching conclusions.
1. While it's true that Musk can't be an expert in everything, he is not alone, Tesla products have shown that they are capable of great industrial design, creating some of the most innovative and functional cars in the industry. One would have to assume that before writing a piece that millions of people will read, and will be scrutinized by journalists for years, he worked with his industrial design team for months, maybe years. He didn't think about these ideas overnight, Tesla have been nurturing them for years. Give the team more credit than the 10 minutes you spent thinking about this. 2. There are a lot of historical examples on how this could work. And there are a lot of clues on Tesla's past work and future plans that can help us imagine how it might materialize. Other people have already shown some historical examples in both SciFi and real world. But we also have many more clues: He talks about how autonomy and making buses smaller. This makes a lot of sense. If you don't need drivers then you are not limited to preset routes, you can create routes on-demand based on real time requests, this means more personalized routes that will tailor to less people. A big bus can fit around 50 people while one of those mini buses can fit around 16. If there is no driver that means 16 usable seats. It can potentially fit more people if they are standing, something similar to an airport shuttle, but I believe full autonomy and personalized routes will allow for people to commute for long distances without switching buses, so sitting makes more sense. He talks about plans to design a pickup truck, we've also seen how the Tesla X and Tesla S use the same platform. You can easily fit 16 seats in the same platform of a pickup truck. A mini bus this size can be deployed in any city with minimal regulatory resistance. There are already circulating cars this size. As opposed to buses which require special permissions or are banned from some streets. How do you get in and out? well, each row of seats would need to have an independent door, that means 4 doors on each side. Each door would need to open independently as to not open the whole side of the bus to pick up 1 or 2 persons. And Tesla developed the perfect door for this! Look at some of the properties of falcon wing doors: A-They open up, so you can open any number of them simultaneously without bumping into the others. B-They allow you to walk in, standing up. C-They detect and avoid obstacles. 3. Safety. Mini buses are not very safe. Well, he is also dropping a clue by saying that autonomous vehicles will need to be 10X safer than their manual siblings. They can be optimized and be much safer than current cars and buses. With the same information contained in the Master Plan v2 plus historical information about transportation design and Teslas own products and strategies we can reach a viable conclusion: An autonomous mini-bus, with the same footprint as a pickup truck, able to transport ~16 people comfortably to personalized routes. With 4 falcon wing doors on each side to access each row of seats.
Well, Tesla is already a leading innovator in gull-wing doors....
A separate door for every row of facing seats? Like an old British non-gangwayed carriage. Faster entry and access. Doors wouldn't open for new passengers if adjacent seats were occupied?
That's exactly what I envisioned at first.
Alternatively, everyone could sit back-to-back facing out the sides which could split open up and down. The bottom portion of the door could even be the exit step.
Or, without the need for a driver, everyone could enter from the windshield area and exit at the back, but that would still require an aisle.