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

  • Bristol’s buses trial CycleEye detection system
    July 7, 2017
    Fusion Processing’s Jim Hutchinson looks at a two-year trial of the company’s cyclist detection system. Is cycling in a city dangerous? Well, that depends where you are and how you view statistics. Malmö is far more bike-friendly than Mumbai and the risk can either be perceived as small - one death per 29 million miles cycled in the UK in 2013 - or large - that equated to 109 deaths in the same year. Whatever your personal take on the data, the effect of these accidents can be felt indirectly too. News of c
  • Connected Vehicles test vehicle to vehicle applications
    January 19, 2012
    In the US, the ITS Joint Program Office is about to conduct a series of Driver Clinics intended to gauge public reaction to Connected Vehicle safety technologies and applications. Starting in August, the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) will test Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) applications with everyday drivers in what it describes as 'normal operational scenarios'. These Driver Clinics are being carried out at six locations across the US and together with the subsequent model deployment beginning in 2012,
  • Cisco and Oxbotica team up to improve AV connectivity 
    March 4, 2020
    Autonomous vehicle (AV) provider Oxbotica is partnering with Cisco to improve the data connectivity which will be needed to make driverless cars a reality.
  • Home based real time travel information drives reduction in car use
    January 20, 2012
    David Crawford investigates a new approach to discouraging car use - the 'kitchen as travel centre'. ITS technology working together with UK planning legislation is driving an innovative 'kitchen as travel centre' approach to home design which is boosting public transport as an alternative to car use. The combination is already proving powerful enough to assuage environmentalist opposition to major urban developments. It is also being seen as a way of delivering wider social and community benefits inside an