Took a crack at a Minibus Design. Will post more pictures (Interior Design/layout, Door Mechanism, front/back view) But forget about that for now, let's talk about what we have here. Tesla seams to have a 1950s design vibe going on, this is best seen in their current supercharger look and model 3. (My profile picture is the iconic 1950s picture drawn in a relentless optimism style depicting the future of automobiles merged with model 3 design, if you want the full res copy ask below)
So the general gist of this goes like this:
- Easy entrance/exit through "bay doors" which will work like slide up garage doors.
- In most of the world their is a temperature difference between outside being too hot or cold and the inside being just right. To minimize discomfort only the required doors will open at stops. This would be done by using peoples phones with the Tesla app as reference to where passengers are in the vehicle and where they have their destination set.
- This will be a workhorse of a vehicle so for ordinary folks like you and me you can buy it with seating for 12 and for cities where Tesla has "demand which exceeds the supply of customer-owned cars, Tesla will operate its own fleet" (Master Plan, Part Deux) it could hold standing space up to 24. (Trust me on this number, there are a few tricks I've come up with) Tesla would also operate the minibus as a shuttle bus at the Fremont Plant and the Gigafactory.
- The largest cost of traditional buses was paying the driver. However as the Master Plan pointed out if you have no driver because of autonomy you can shrink the buses. As you can see its about 1/3rd as long as a traditional bus. Another benefit of smaller buses is if you have 3 small buses instead of 1 big one you can have buses stop three times as often. (Also a very big empty ICE bus is a nightmare in terms of emissions per passenger and a normal ICE bus isn't exactly great either.)
- Designing a bus to look sleek and in motion is difficult because you can't make it low slung like a sports car. So instead I decided on a flat vertical front with a horizontal curve and a big vertical curve along the back. Extreme Aerodynamics will take the back seat, if your just guzzling more sunshine.
So the general gist of this goes like this:
- Easy entrance/exit through "bay doors" which will work like slide up garage doors.
- In most of the world their is a temperature difference between outside being too hot or cold and the inside being just right. To minimize discomfort only the required doors will open at stops. This would be done by using peoples phones with the Tesla app as reference to where passengers are in the vehicle and where they have their destination set.
- This will be a workhorse of a vehicle so for ordinary folks like you and me you can buy it with seating for 12 and for cities where Tesla has "demand which exceeds the supply of customer-owned cars, Tesla will operate its own fleet" (Master Plan, Part Deux) it could hold standing space up to 24. (Trust me on this number, there are a few tricks I've come up with) Tesla would also operate the minibus as a shuttle bus at the Fremont Plant and the Gigafactory.
- The largest cost of traditional buses was paying the driver. However as the Master Plan pointed out if you have no driver because of autonomy you can shrink the buses. As you can see its about 1/3rd as long as a traditional bus. Another benefit of smaller buses is if you have 3 small buses instead of 1 big one you can have buses stop three times as often. (Also a very big empty ICE bus is a nightmare in terms of emissions per passenger and a normal ICE bus isn't exactly great either.)
- Designing a bus to look sleek and in motion is difficult because you can't make it low slung like a sports car. So instead I decided on a flat vertical front with a horizontal curve and a big vertical curve along the back. Extreme Aerodynamics will take the back seat, if your just guzzling more sunshine.
