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Transportation United Kingdom

Self-Drive Delivery Van Can Be 'Built in Four Hours' (bbc.com) 44

Posted by msmash from the future-is-coming dept.
A self-drive electric delivery van, that could be on UK streets next year, has been unveiled at the Wired 2016 conference in London. From a report on BBC:The vehicle's stripped-back design and lightweight materials mean it can be assembled by one person in four hours, the firm behind it claims. The vehicles will be "autonomous-ready", for when self-drive legislation is in place, the firm said. The government wants to see self-drive cars on the roads by 2020. "We find trucks today totally unacceptable. Loud, polluting and unfriendly," said Denis Sverdlov, chief executive of Charge, the automotive technology firm behind the truck. "We are making trucks the way they should be - affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe."
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Self-Drive Delivery Van Can Be 'Built in Four Hours' More

Self-Drive Delivery Van Can Be 'Built in Four Hours'

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  • If it's made by Ikea, that should read 'The vehicle's stripped-back design and lightweight materials mean it can be assembled by one person in "four hours". It took my wife and I 16 hours, got half way through and had to go back a bunch of steps, we lost some parts and no we're seeking marriage counselling.'

  • no pictures yet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by green1 ( 322787 ) on Friday November 04, 2016 @04:44PM (#53215475)

    I'm always a little skeptical of any of these articles that don't even include the picture of a prototype vehicle, only computer renderings. Anyone can talk like this and show a computer rendering. Getting from there to a working vehicle actually driving around and being mass produced is a rather large challenge.

    We see so many press releases like this, wake me up when at least a prototype is driving around.

  • 2 shifts, 10 people (Brits at that) each, 10,000 trucks/year.

    Self driving software, done in house, _ready_ to be uploaded as soon as it's legal.

    No prototype, only CGI of poorly thought out 'trucks'. which will cost the same as gasoline/diesel cars, they promise.

    Self righteous ass in charge: "We find trucks today totally unacceptable. Loud, polluting and unfriendly,"

    So much bullshit. A British /.er should go by their mail drop/fake office and kick the lead grifter square in the nuts.

  • and crash in 3

    • That brings up a point about cargo only autonomous vehicles. They should not require all the safety features that passenger vehicles have to protect passengers. They don't need entertainment systems or comfy interiors, etc. That could significantly cut cost and reduce manufacturing time, but hard to think as much as the overly optimistic statement of the subject article.

  • 4 hours of assembly time? yeah.... (Score:3)

    by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Friday November 04, 2016 @04:50PM (#53215519)

    I used to assemble industrial sized [amazonaws.com]) printers and I got pretty good at it after a couple of years. Even still, I could barely finish 8 in a day if I really (and I mean REALLY) hustled and all of the parts were in spec and ready to go.

    4 hours seems kind of optimistic to me for a car. I would think that just the wiring alone would take at least that long.

  • up to 100 Miles range? may work for some deliverys but if say the hub is 20-15 miles out side of the city core that may be to small of a range.

  • Go to the actual article and you see not a prototype, not a mockup, but concept art.

    Could a single trained technician with the proper tools (hoist, lift, etc.) assemble a truck from modular, prefabricated parts in four hours? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Especially when a typical kit car requires 80-100 hours to build yourself [caterhamcars.com].

    This is pie-in-the-sky fluff to pimp to investors.

    • Not sure that's what they are claiming.

      They claim that two shifts of 10 people each working a year will make 10,000 trucks. That's about 4 person hours/truck.

      They are assuming majic automation in the factory. For a truck with no prototype, they likely also have a factory with no design, thought up by a person with no manufacturing experience, claiming production numbers that still smell of the dark place they came from.

  • You won't see commercially available self driving cars on public roads for another 20 years at least. The technology isn't there, despite the VC hype.

    • Highway only will happen. But they will have a driver in the cab for everything off divided highways. It will be the end of 'driving teams', one driver will keep it rolling 24x7.

  • If the vehicle is sufficiently simplified, then it should be possible to "build" a vehicle in four hours. We're talking about an EV, right? It's just modules, you bolt them down and plug them together and you're done. If it has MacPherson suspension at all four corners (or something even simpler, like a torsion bar rear) then the total number of connections which must be torqued down is small enough to where it's feasible. If all the switch gear and instrumentation is packaged in modules that are just slapp

  • I don't think they've thought about it. (Score:3)

    by Computershack ( 1143409 ) on Saturday November 05, 2016 @03:21AM (#53217711)
    "We find trucks today totally unacceptable. Loud, polluting and unfriendly," said Denis Sverdlov, chief executive of Charge, the automotive technology firm behind the truck. "We are making trucks the way they should be - affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe."

    So his solution is to replace a truck with 28 of these vans which is what it would take to carry the same load as a single articulated lorry. I'm sure that is way better.

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