Thursday, June 25, 2009

Dutch robot promises to fill your gas tank, won't clean windshield


As if robots didn't already have enough of our jobs, a group of Dutch inventors have now taken the wraps off their new car-fueling robot, which they hope will one day be filling up your tank at a gas station near your. Coming in at the relatively bargain price of €75,000 (or $111,100), the bot can apparently identify cars as they pull up, and reference them against a database to determine the type of fuel cap and the fuel type to use, which should avoid any mishaps. Somewhat interestingly, the inventors admit that the technology isn't an entirely new idea, and they give credit for the inspiration to the robots used for milking cows, saying that "if a robot can do that then why can't it fill a car tank." While it's apparently not a done deal just yet, the team say they hope to roll out the robot to a "handful" of Dutch gas stations by the end of the year.

[Photo courtesy of Reuters/Michael Kooren]

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