Hyundai's Elevate robotic walking car steps out of the shadows

>Developed in a partnership between Hyundai's CRADLE disruptive innovations incubator and Detroit product innovation studio Sundberg-Ferar

That's an odd partnership. I'd expect they'd want to partner with a robotics company like Boston Dynamics.

>The concept has been in the works for well over two years

And all they have to show for it is a video? The article makes it sound like this is really happening but this is a very hard problem and they have nothing to show they've made any progress at all. Smells like marketing BS.

I would have thought the value of a vehicle in the situations shown in the article would depend on how cleverly it can avoid or respond to things shifting or falling underneath its wheels. After all, when a person walks over rubble and suchlike, one of the most important things after keeping their balance is knowing whether that thing they're about to put their weight on is going to move when they do.

I assume if they had a really solid solution for that, this would have been a video demo rather than a set of 3D renderings.

Still cool, of course - if they're able to make this a reality it'd be really neat.

That looks like a solid case of vaporware to me. Only renderings and not even a photograph of a mock-up.

So basically, an autobot.

Hybrids are usually hard though. If walkers are ready for service though, it might be good to start with a no-wheels walker and transport it in another car.. at least for a start.

If I was going to make up a market for such a thing, I'd start with either recreation or mobility. If I could pay to ride a robotic horse on a "hike," I probably would.

This is a concept car - which is fine, I was just confused to find only CGI renders and apparently one full-size mockup. I like concept cars, this just seemed to be presented as a working prototype.

That's the offroad car I've been dreaming about!

why not just have two Atlas robots facing one another?