Skip to main content

Take the Tesloop instead of the plane for inter-city travel

Taking advantage of Tesla’s generous warranty on its Model S car, a group of young entrepreneurs from the US west coast started Tesloop, providing a travel experience they say is similar to an airline where passengers share a cabin in a plane, except that Tesloop leaves from a convenient Tesla supercharger station location. Tesloop has an expanding fleet of fully electric Tesla model vehicles that seat up to four people. It not only employs its own drivers, but also offers two types of membership to trav
February 22, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Taking advantage of Tesla’s generous warranty on its Model S car, a group of young entrepreneurs from the US west coast started Tesloop, providing a travel experience they say is similar to an airline where passengers share a cabin in a plane, except that Tesloop leaves from a convenient Tesla supercharger station location.

Tesloop has an expanding fleet of fully electric Tesla model vehicles that seat up to four people. It not only employs its own drivers, but also offers two types of membership to travellers: Passenger Membership, where passengers can book seats in shared cars along Tesloop’s scheduled city-to-city routes and are driven to their destination; and Pilot Club Membership, which enables members to drive the vehicle following background checks and a short period of training on vehicle operations, proper use of the Auto-Pilot features, and general Tesloop procedures. Once certified, Pilots are eligible to travel at no cost on all Tesloop scheduled routes in the driver’s seat.

The car is not fully autonomous, but the highway features in the Tesla’s Autopilot include: Adaptive Cruise Control; Auto-Steering; Lane Detection; Blind Spot Protection; Emergency Braking; Automatic Passing.

Tesloop says that, for short trips between cities, this may be the new way of travel in the coming years. Booking is simple and passengers arrive at the departure point 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, instead of going through the waiting and security checks at the airport, which it claims can add up to two hours to a flight.

In common with the airlines, Tesloop also offers wi-fi, device chargers and water; juices, light meals and snacks are available for purchase during the trip.

Related Content

  • Spreading the word about Bike Share in the US
    April 19, 2016
    Smart bike share technology and funding policies help bridge the transit gap through the final mile as Andrew Bardin Williams explains. The sharing economy is coming to Portland this summer. BikeTown, the city’s new bike share program sponsored by Nike, will be launched in mid-July with 1,000 bicycles distributed across 100 stations throughout the city. Originally funded by a $2 million federal grant, the program has been boosted by a $10 million sponsorship deal with Nike ensures funding for the next five
  • Dubai metro - the world's longest automated rail system
    July 31, 2012
    David Crawford reviews the recent opening of Dubai's Red Line. The US$7.6bn Dubai Metro, the Phase I Red Line of which started partial operation in September 2009, will be the world's longest driverless rail system on its planned completion in 2011. With a total length of some 75km, it will then overtake the 68.7km Vancouver SkyTrain and be able to carry over 1.2 million passengers on a typical day.
  • Cable cars come of age in trans-continental expansion
    April 30, 2015
    David Crawford explores a high-level option of public transport. Sharing its origin with that of ski lifts at winter sports resorts in the European Alps, urban aerial cable transport is attracting growing interest as a low-footprint, low-energy alternative to conventional public transport that can swoop over ground-level traffic congestion.
  • Taking the hassle out of parking
    April 29, 2015
    A team of senior electrical and computer engineers from Rice University in Houston, Texas, has developed a new parking technology called ParkiT, with the aim of making it easier to find a parking space in a crowded car park. The team claims the new system is cheaper than sensor technology currently being used and would provide car park managers and attendants with real time information on available parking spaces. That information could then be shared with drivers through electronic signs or a driver-fri