Autoblog

Dutch inventors might have ushered in the return of the full-service station. Yet like so many other things being taken out of the hands of flesh and blood people, the new full-service could be an all-robot affair. The robot -- called the Tankpitstop robot -- is affixed to the bowser, and if it recognizes the make and model of car, and your gas cap doesn't need a key, it will open everything up and start pumping.

The creation is the brainchild of a gas station operator who said he saw a robot milking a cow, and figured that a robot could fill a car. Heck, if robots can build cars and fill their fluids, we figure there's no reason why they can't fill a tank. The question now is how to let drivers know that the robot knows how to fill your car. What you don't want is to pull up in your freshly-waxed ride and hear the robotic equivalent of "Hmmm, let's try this..." As it stands, the robot costs €75,000. No telling what a station's liability insurance will cost.

[Source: Reuters]

ASIMO, Honda's increasingly uncanny humanoid robot, has finally impressed enough Hollywood producers to get his own show. The running, walking, talking, stair-climbing Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility (aka ASIMO) takes the stage at Honda's ASIMO Theater in the Tomorrowland section of Disneyland. You'll be treated to a 15-minute show in which ASIMO interacts with a live host and shows off how he will act when he finally makes it into private homes. Apparently, one of ASIMO's principal roles in our robotic future will be to "act as a servile companion to those most in need of physical assistance." That sounds like the beginning of I, Robot to us, but what do we know? And if your name is Sarah Connor, you might want to skip that attraction for now.

[Source: Gizmag]

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Not content with its ever-tightening grip on the global auto industry, Toyota has expanded its goals and embarked on a quest to create a new droid army with which it hopes to take control of the galaxy. Without Jedi to protect us, we're doomed.

Okay. It's really not that dire, but we weren't kidding about the Toyobots. The company has unveiled a new wheeled tour guide robot that will lead visitors around the Toyota Kaikan Exhibition Hall in Toyota City, Japan. The 'bot moves autonomously, communicates verbally, recognizes visitor nametags, and is able to avoid obstacles without outside assistance. Furthermore, it's equipped with three jointed fingers on each hand, which Toyota says enable it to sign autographs. (A word of caution: these had only three fingers, too.)

It's the latest showcase for Toyota's ongoing development of Partner Robots designed to assist people with the various tasks they encounter in their daily lives. Perhaps, in the future, one of the Toyota robots will be able to talk directly to the Hyper Hybrid Synergy Drive to diagnose and repair problems.

Until then, however, we're really more interested in seeing one of these match up with Honda's ASIMO in a fight.

[Source: Toyota]

Looks like the sometimes-suicidally-prone manufacturing robots at General Motors are taking jobs away from some real people. The Australian is reporting that up to 600 Holden employees will be getting their pink slips in the company's Elizabeth plant in South Australia. The Elizabeth plant is where the Holden Commodore, among other vehicles, is manufactured. The explanation is that the company is "adjusting to improved high technology automated operations." Sounds like language employed to gain favor with future robot overlords.

Seriously, though, the downsizing will begin with voluntary buyouts and workers will be given government retraining and other assistance. The Elizabeth plant currently employs 4,500 workers and has been touted as being one of the "most flexible and efficient operations in the world."

The cutbacks come just as the company gears up for production of the ute and wagon versions of the new-for-2006 Commodore range. That vehicle will be the basis of the new Pontiac G8, which will either be built in the States eventually or immediately to save costs. So we have workers doing too good of a job building a car that might be a bit big for current tastes.

Thanks for the tip, Daniel!

[Source: The Australian]

Robotic parking garages haven't caught on in the U.S. like they have in other developed countries. Perhaps that's because we're not as strapped for open space as other nations, or maybe its because the only robotic parking garage in the U.S. has dropped both a Cadillac Deville and a Jeep several stories and trapped its patrons vehicles inside for 26 hours because of a software glitch. We reported on that robotic garage back in August when a legal dispute between the city of Hoboken, NJ and Robotic Parking Systems, Inc. trapped even more cars inside.

In the Big Apple, however, space for parking is at such a premium that they're willing to risk the aforementioned pit falls to give this robotic storage-and-retrieval thing the old college try. A new robotic garage will open in Chinatown in early February that, unlike the Hoboken facility, stores its cars underground beneath an apartment building. Built by Automotion Parking Systems (click link to watch a demo), the Chinatown facility will be able to fit 67 vehicles where a traditional garage could only fit 24. Patrons can pay $25/day to park or $400/month, which the AP report tells us is competitive for NYC parking. Automotion claims there's a virtual impossibility of any snafus occuring similar to the ones that plagued the parking patrons of Hoboken, though time will certainly tell on this one.

As always, we here at Autoblog would like to extend our warmest greetings to our new robotic overlords, and just say that we look forward to becoming their sole source of power after we scorch the sky.

[Source: Associated Press]