Video of the Week: Tesla previews ‘solid metal snake’ robot charger

Amid headlines about Telsa’s downgraded delivery outlook causing its stock to have the worst day in nearly two years, the Californian prestige electric vehicle maker and smasher of cleantech boundaries quietly released a video of a prototype of its robotic car charger in action, slinkily finding its own way to a Model S socket and plugging in.

The video, which you must watch, below, was posted to Instagram on the same day that Tesla warned of fewer car deliveries for the year, sending its stock on a 13 per cent slide.

It follows up on a Tweet, last December, from the electric car maker’s billionaire founder and chief boundary smasher, Elon Musk, advising that they were working on a charger “that automatically moves out from the wall and connects like a solid metal snake. For realz.”

The robo-charger is currently in testing and finer details are few, but Tesla says it could work with every Model S on the road. As the Washington Post notes, “it helps that the Model S has a charge-port door that opens automatically when it senses a nearby charging nozzle, using the same technology that pushes the car’s door handles out when the driver approaches with the keys.”

For realz.