5 ms·
> The interchangeable tops would be whats loaded in the warehouse. You mean the tops are essentially pallets? Okay but how do you get them on and off? This see
by dpark 5y ago
> The interchangeable tops would be whats loaded in the warehouse.
You mean the tops are essentially pallets? Okay but how do you get them on and off? This seems like a forklift make more sense.
> They take away a lot of navigational complexity in a warehouse setting where you don't have much space.
I don’t see it. You still need a mechanism to load/unload unless the things you’re moving are capable of doing that themselves somehow. Unless your load/unload mechanism is somehow omnidirectional, you’ll need to turn the vehicle anyway, negating most of the benefit.
- marcosdumay 5y agoHow do you get the car tops on and off that demo vehicle? I'm asking this since I closed the article and couldn't imagine any good way, but whatever it is, you use the same mechanism with the pallets. Something certainly goes up and takes the load, like a forklift. And yes, it's often easier to make the load/unload mechanism omnidirectional than to make a space where a directional vehicle can maneuver.
- dpark 5y agoI have no idea if the designers had any plan for how to change out the tops. My guess is they didn’t think it through that far because this whole concept seems poorly thought through. If you were doing to change the tops, though, I would expect some external lift would do that job. Adding lift capabilities to the base or to the tops would add a bunch of weight for no reason. (Those extra tops have to be stored somewhere. Might as well keep the lift mechanism in the storage facility.) The obvious answer is that a forklift is used to put the top onto the base.