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'Robovan' Name Already Taken - Elon, Try These
A small robotics company named "Starship Technologies" filed trademarks for "Robovan" in July 2017. Here's their quick video, which also makes use of a special Mercedes van that acts as a mothership.
When asked about Tesla's Robovan, a spokesperson for Starship said in an email to Business Insider on Friday that the Robovan "was a great idea when we came up with it 7 years ago."
Tesla uses the word "Robovan" to describe a small autonomous carrier for up to 20 people. And science fiction authors have suggestions.
For example, the automatobus from Sally (1953) by Isaac Asimov.
"Now you listen to me." I raised my voice because I was just too mad to be polite anymore. "When you turn off Sally's motor, you hurt her. How would you like to be kicked unconscious? That's what you do to Sally, when you turn her off.""You're exaggerating, Jake. The automatobuses get turned off every night."
Or perhaps the autobus from Tidal Moon, by Stanley G. and Helen Weinbaum, published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938.
THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold, it was certainly preferable to traveling by hipp. But hipp travel was unavoidable from here on. The trip to Aquia verged on the wet side of the planet—the side from which burst the mighty floods. So, added to steep, rocky drops, impassable by autobus, were the dank, muddy flats which only the hipp could traverse.
Another early mention of this idea is ascribed to Henry Kuttner writing in The Little Things in 1946:
Buses without drivers moved close to the curb and stopped at intervals. The lamp posts gave a different sort of light...He hopped one of the robot buses when it stopped.
(Read more about robot bus)
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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