February 7th, 2008The Robot Invasion Begins
So be it then! We should at least look at the bright side of the whole deal. No more stepping out of the car, no more getting dirty or smelling of petrol after a quick refuel. The automatic refueling unit was developed by an inventor from Netherlands who is also a gas station owner, and is the first of its kind in the world working in a gas-pumping station. Ouch! That will really drive some unemployed people mad.
Nico van Staveren said in an interview that he got the idea while visiting a
farm and saw the robotic arm used for milking the cows, and started thinking that he could build a similar device that would fill the tank of a car on its own. If it were to go into mass production, a model could cost up to 110,000 U.S. dollars. However, it does not work on all types of cars, just on the models that do not require a specific key to open the gas cap in order to gain access to the fuel tank. Read the rest of this entry »
