Robot arms are expensive and mostly applicable in scenarios with consistent positional repeatability, while people parking cars certainly lacks that repeatability.

Why do we need a robot arm to charge EVs? It feels like a solution looking for a problem. It’s not like manually connecting the fuel source to a vehicle is something unique to EVs, drivers have to connect the hose to their ICE vehicle at the gas pump too, and it works pretty well.

I could maybe see an argument for accessibility here, but, again, solutions that work for ICE vehicles would apply here too.

There is potentially an application for something like this with a self-driving fleet for unattended recharging stations, but this is being marketed as a home-charging tool.

Having these at home makes no sense.

However, if you have a fleet of autonomous vehicles, once their charge runs low, they can go to an automated station. Say, in a basement parking lot. Get automatically plugged in, charge, unplug, then return into circulation.

Doing a NIO style automated battery swap would also work, but this is a more scalable solution for public parking lots, highrises, company lots, truck stops, dual-use gas stations, etc.

Is this really necessary? Sometimes I wonder if people ever think about things like impact on the climate, good use of material, etc.

They ever seen dildos with suction cup at the base?

Put a charinger plug on a dildo

Mount that thing on the back wall in your garage/parking spot

Then design your car to have a charging plug at the rear

Back into the charging plug 🔌