Robotics has been a revolution and has now become an intricate part of our daily lives. For instance, take the case of a trash robot, that allows the collection of the garbage from the river via the internet. Then there's the police patrol robot that is fighting crimes on the streets of California, and let's not forget the Breadbot-Robotic mini bakery that dishes out 250 loaves of bread a day.
There are countless examples of innovations in robotics and still, they present many unexplored opportunities, such as changing tires. RoboTire, a robotics start-up based out of San Francisco's Bay Area, is making waves across the industry for its ability to change car tires within a fraction of the time taken by the most skilled mechanics.
Change tires within seconds
According to Darolfi, RoboTire can change all four tires of a vehicle in 10 minutes, which is about 2.5 minutes per tire. This is significantly faster than the average 60 minutes taken by a human to change both pairs of tires and while some people might be able to do it faster, they can't continue doing it eight hours a day.
The company's founder and former Spark Robotics CEO, Victor Darolfi, came up with the idea while waiting for his tyres to be changed at a local service station. I sat at America's Tires for three hours and thought, hey, we use robots to put tires on at the factory," he told Tech Crunch. "Why don't we bring robots into the service industry?"
Business Model
Teaming up with Mitsubishi robotics, RoboTire has developed a system that costs upwards of $250,000 and intends to license it out to service centres, dealers, auto repair shops and other outlets where it can be used. For those who participate in the company's pilot program will be charged around $5 to $7 for each tire change, which will be bumped up to $10 to $15 when a more finished product rolls out.
The company expects the robot to rake in about $10,000 monthly, which means if estimates are met, it'll recover the investment cost in just over two years. The start-up is currently in talks with a number of multinational companies, including Bridgestone, who the company has already partnered with to pilot its product in a California-based auto repair shop.
