Another Sign Of Tesla Gearing Up For Robotaxis? This Automatic Sanitization Patent Offers Clues

EV giant Tesla Inc. TSLA has a patent for systems and methods of sanitizing an enclosed space that can be shared among multiple persons such as vehicle cabins as it gears up to launch its dedicated robotaxi offering.

What Happened: The sanitization method proposed in the patent involves detecting the current environmental condition within the closed space using sensors and generating a sanitization routine based on the data.

The routine will be aimed at adjusting the existing environmental condition towards a target condition and will be ascertained depending on the presence or absence of entities such as passengers, pets, and medicines in the vehicle, the published patent reads.

The routines could include emitting disinfection vapor to sanitize the space, adjusting seat positions to allow for better sunlight, and so forth.

“Current means for sanitizing shared spaces, for example manually wiping touch surface using disinfectant wipes can be time-consuming, laborious and lead to unsatisfactory sanitation conditions,” the company said in the patent filing while adding that the results on these might not be easily verifiable.

The patent was filed in February 2023 and published in August.

Why It Matters: The patent gains particular relevance as Tesla is gearing up to unveil its dedicated robotaxi offering on Aug. 8.

During Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in June, Musk said that the company would operate its autonomous fleet in a manner combining Airbnb and Uber. While there will be some self-driving cars that Tesla operates by itself, private customers can add or subtract their cars to the fleet as and when they want.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives thinks that Tesla's ‘comeback' story has begun with the worst of demand issues in China fading out and the company expected to launch its robotaxi product in August. The unveil, he says, could serve as a near-term catalyst to getting Tesla to a $1 trillion valuation once again.

Price Action: Tesla shares were up 1.07% in premarket trading on Monday, after closing 0.2% higher at $197.88 on Friday, according to data from Benzinga Pro

Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

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