Way too early guess at the Tesla Urban Transporter (Spacebus)

[farzyness]

I'm using a couple hints that Elon dropped on the project to come up with what I think will be the interior layout of the Spacebus:

- It will use the same chassis as Model X
- It will be able to carry people on wheelchairs
- It will do away with the center aisle regularly present in buses

I used the following picture of the Model X from the top-down to try and come up with a model:

Based on this, I used excel to create a super-simple and incredibly unscientific breakdown of the space inside the chassis:

The yellow spaces are my rough estimation of the space taken up by each seat in the car. The grey spaces are regions of the car that are primarily used for cargo or house some sort of control for the car (i.e. dash, pedals, etc.) Any white spaces are buffer zones that are inherently present in the vehicle so that there's adequate room between the objects. Keep in mind that the graphic above does NOT include the frunk. The black bar in the chair is the orientation of the human in the chair.

Using the same exact boundaries, I went ahead and took one of the larger monopost seats in the second row (the one with the black bar) and rearranged the inside to try and maximize people to space ratio while meeting the criteria that Elon outlined. The result is the following:

Observations:

-Model X is theoretically able to hold 10 humans if they are facing to the side and the seat is of the same size as the larger second-row monopost seat.
- One of the rows can be left without a seat so that someone with a wheelchair can literally wheel right in with the assistance of a retracting ramp.
- The middle area of the chassis (in grey) can be used as a cargo area for people, as well as underneath the seat since it's a monopost design

This points me towards the following conclusions:

- Elon had a plan with the falcon wing doors and the monopost seats from the beginning. He was envisioning using both things to create this form of bus that allows people to hold their carry-ons underneath and behind their seats.
- The spacebus will have 10 individual falcon-wing doors, which will open/close depending on the seats that are being vacated/populated on each destination stop.

Thoughts?

 

[ecarfan]

In another thread I suggested something similar, without the sophisticated graphics. I was quickly corrected by several people more astute than I that having exit capability on the street facing side of the vehicle would be very dangerous, as people would exit right into traffic. Someone also pointed out that riding in a vehicle while sitting facing at right angles to the direction of motion can be very uncomfortable if the vehicle is frequently changing speed and direction, as an urban minibus would be. So, not a good idea to have all the passengers facing outwards.

As to the 10 Falcon Wing doors in your design, even though I am a fan of those doors I think that would add too much cost and complexity and result in a vehicle that was not structurally strong enough to withstand side impact collisions. I can envision such a bus with 2 or 3 extra wide Falcon Wing doors on the curb side of the vehicle, but I cannot then envision how the street side passengers would conveniently exit and enter the vehicle. Maybe the curb side seats would be able to move independently and open up access to the street side seats. That of course would also add cost and complexity.

 

[farzyness]

In another thread I suggested something similar, without the sophisticated graphics. I was quickly corrected by several people more astute than I that having exit capability on the street facing side of the vehicle would be very dangerous, as people would exit right into traffic. Someone also pointed out that riding in a vehicle while sitting facing at right angles to the direction of motion can be very uncomfortable if the vehicle is frequently changing speed and direction, as an urban minibus would be. So, not a good idea to have all the passengers facing outwards.

As to the 10 Falcon Wing doors in your design, even though I am a fan of those doors I think that would add too much cost and complexity and result in a vehicle that was not structurally strong enough to withstand side impact collisions. I can envision such a bus with 2 or 3 extra wide Falcon Wing doors on the curb side of the vehicle, but I cannot then envision how the street side passengers would conveniently exit and enter the vehicle. Maybe the curb side seats would be able to move independently and open up access to the street side seats. That of course would also add cost and complexity.

Let's all be glad I'm not a graphic designer by trade

I do not think having exit capability on the street facing side is that big of a deal. In theory, every car out there today has the same capability. I'm thinking additional graphics/lights that warn of a person getting ready to exit will alleviate a lot of this issue. Not to mention a larger % of drop-offs would occur at destinations which would theoretically be much-less traveled than regular bus stops today (I'm assuming bus-stops are logically in highly-traveled spots due to the nature of the concept).

For the 10 Falcon Wings, I'm assuming there will be some clever/advanced engineering processes/principles that can be applied to make this happen, including material knowledge and applications borrowed from SpaceX. Your guess might be better though, maybe it's 4 or 6 falcon-wing doors instead of 10 individual ones.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

In another thread I suggested something similar, without the sophisticated graphics. I was quickly corrected by several people more astute than I that having exit capability on the street facing side of the vehicle would be very dangerous, as people would exit right into traffic. Someone also pointed out that riding in a vehicle while sitting facing at right angles to the direction of motion can be very uncomfortable if the vehicle is frequently changing speed and direction, as an urban minibus would be. So, not a good idea to have all the passengers facing outwards.

As to the 10 Falcon Wing doors in your design, even though I am a fan of those doors I think that would add too much cost and complexity and result in a vehicle that was not structurally strong enough to withstand side impact collisions. I can envision such a bus with 2 or 3 extra wide Falcon Wing doors on the curb side of the vehicle, but I cannot then envision how the street side passengers would conveniently exit and enter the vehicle. Maybe the curb side seats would be able to move independently and open up access to the street side seats. That of course would also add cost and complexity.

If Elon cares about safety he'd know that it's safer to face backwards. But Elon likes people to like the vehicle so he'd also know that people like to face forwards. He may or may not care that people prone to travel sickness might do better facing forwards.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a mixed forward/backward configuration, but my assumption is that like the snake he thought of at the D/AutoPilot event when someone asked about summon, the Teslabus was an idea Elon thought of as he was writing the (E)MPPD, so at the moment a bunch of interns are working on the design so absolutely nothing is settled.

 

[James Anders]

I doubt if you can eliminate the crumple zone like that.

 

[JRP3]

It will do away with the center aisle regularly present in buses

So why did you come up with a design that has a center aisle?
My guesses:
People will be seated facing forward.
There will not be doors facing the street, falcon or otherwise.
There may be two larger falcon doors on the curb side, but probably not. I'd expect cheaper conventional sliding doors.
There will be no center aisle, the aisle will be along the curb side of the bus, and seats will be bench seats that hold 2 people, like school buses.

 

[electracity]

The bus could be longer than the MX. More overhang would work, considering the low speeds.

Musk seemed obsessed with the MX second row, that perhaps the bus is close to the MX.

 

[farzyness]

So why did you come up with a design that has a center aisle?

I would categorize the middle space in my design more of a storage area than an aisle.

 

[farzyness]

I doubt if you can eliminate the crumple zone like that.

Crumple zone would still exist - remember that the design I show doesn't show what would be a frunk or frontal area that would still exist.

 

[Model 3]

To bring in some perspective, here is its competitor:

.. and one more:

 

[jdevo2004]

My guess is 12 seats with a fully autonomous version and 10 seats for the version with a driver. 4 rows of 3 seats facing each other. Two sliding doors on one side of the vehicle to access each set of 6 seats. Bench seats would be able to fold up to accommodate wheel chairs/strollers.

Something like this train seating but with 3 seats per side.

Vehicle would look something like this:

 

[JRP3]

I still think rear facing seats are a non starter in small, nimble vehicles in the city. They can work in a train because it doesn't do stop and go or sharp turns.

 

[electracity]

I still think rear facing seats are a non starter in small, nimble vehicles in the city. They can work in a train because it doesn't do stop and go or sharp turns.

People stand and also sit perpendicular to the direction of travel in city buses.
An automated bus can control g forces except in an accident.

A three row vehicle , two forward, one back would work. Two exterior doors. Something like the blue vehicle shown above. Falcon wing doors seem inferior to me compared to a common sliding door.

 

[JRP3]

People stand and also sit perpendicular to the direction of travel in city buses.

But usually not backwards.

An automated bus can control g forces except in an accident.

Buses will take turns at the same speed as surrounding traffic, and the speed and curve will determine g forces. Same with stop and go.

 

[ecarfan]

People stand and also sit perpendicular to the direction of travel in city buses.

Speaking only for myself, I hate sitting perpendicular to the direction of travel in any vehicle, even in a train.

An automated bus can control g forces except in an accident.

An autonomous bus still has to move with the flow of traffic, and in an urban environment with many intersections and stops it will be constantly accelerating and decelerating. Sounds like a very uncomfortable ride for those sitting sideways.

 

[jdevo2004]

I still think rear facing seats are a non starter in small, nimble vehicles in the city. They can work in a train because it doesn't do stop and go or sharp turns.

You might be right. I believe Elon did mention something about the small transporter being able to accelerate the same as small vehicles to be able to keep up with stop and go traffic. Heavy acceleration would suck if you are facing backwards.

 

[efxjim]

Kids love the rear facing S seats

 

[electracity]

Tesla releases new miniBus pics:

 

[UberEV1]

Slightly off topic: Just returned from China where I read about THIS bus concept . . . eliminating human-induced traffic jams seems the better bet . . .

View media item 115668

 

[Ludus]

To bring in some perspective, here is its competitor:

.. and one more:

Easy mile seems to hit most of Elon's points. It roughly fits the S/X platform, a mini bus with standing room and a U of (folding?) seats facing a wide curb side door with a retractable power ramp. It would carry a larger number of passengers than any other mode . It's wheelchair accessible and easy on and off. Only one rapidly folding door. It's basically like a big elevator with fold down seats.

Tesla would likely make it look cooler and have the advantage of being able to mass produce it and integrate it into a fleet management system that also can pick you up in an individual vehicle.

If he's not talking about this...they ought to be making one of these too because there are a lot of applications that really can't do any better than a rolling elevator like this. No configuration of doors and seats is more efficient than one wide door and standing room.