Welcome to the future
An autonomous robot has been hit and irreparably damaged by a Tesla car operating in self-driving mode in Las Vegas.
The $2,000-per-day rentable humanoid robot was struck ahead of Consumer Electronics Show (CES) technology conference taking place in the Nevada city.
The company behind the robot, Promobot, revealed one of its model v4 products was ‘killed’ by a Tesla Model S, however, many social media users have expressed scepticism over whether the incident was a PR stunt.
Promobot claims that a number of robots were making their way to a display booth around 7 pm when one of them stepped out of line and into a parking lot roadway, only to be smashed by the self-driving vehicle containing one passenger.
“Of course we are vexed,” Oleg Kivokurtsev, Promobot’s Development Director, said of the incident.
“We brought this robot here from Philadelphia to participate at CES. Now it neither cannot participate in the event or be recovered.
“We will conduct an internal investigation and find out why the robot went to the roadway.”
The Tesla continued driving only to stop 50m down the line.
“There was nobody there, no men, no cars,” said George Caldera, the Tesla passenger. “I switched this Tesla into a self-driving mode, and it started to move. And wow! A robot on the track!
“I thought the flivver would come round, but it bumped straightly into the it! I am so sorry, the robot looks cute. And my sincere apologies to the engineers.”
Watch footage of the incident here:
