Elon Musk launches Robovan, a Chinese company that has a vehicle of the same name

• Tesla’s new Robovan has a Chinese counterpart of the same name.
• WeRide unveiled its Robovan back in 2021.
• A separate robotics company, Starship Technologies, filed a US trademark application for “Robovan” in 2017.

Tesla’s new Robovan was CEO Elon Musk’s new surprise at the company’s “We, Robot” event.

But something about him was not as new – his name.

WeRide, a Chinese self-driving startup, unveiled its own self-driving cargo van in 2021. WeRide called its product the Robovan, and the company’s CEO, Tony Han, introduced it as being at the intersection of a passenger vehicle and logistics.

“It’s a self-driving vehicle. If you put a seat in there, it can serve as a robotaxi car. If you put a cabinet in there, it’s really a logistics car,” Han told CNBC in 2021.

“Why don’t we do both?” Han added.

WeRide said it is partnering with JMC-Ford Motors, a joint venture between state-owned automaker Jiangling Motors Corp and Ford, to produce the Robovan.

In May, WeRide said it had obtained a license to conduct road tests for the vehicle in Guangzhou, China. On its website, WeRide said it had received “over 10,000 referral orders from a leading express delivery company” for the car.

But WeRide wasn’t the first company interested in the name “Robovan.”

In July 2017, a company called Starship Technologies filed a trademark for “Robovan,” according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Starship, which specializes in autonomous delivery bots, was founded by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis.

The company said in 2016 that it would work with Mercedes-Benz to develop a “Robovan” for neighborhood grocery deliveries.

Unlike Tesla and WeRide, Starship Technologies’ offering is not an autonomous vehicle.

Starship Technologies stated in a 2016 YouTube video that their Robovan is a specially designed van to house their autonomous delivery robots.

“Instead of completing the door-to-door delivery, the vans will drive to pre-agreed locations to load and unload goods and then dispatch the robots on the final leg for on-demand delivery. finding my way back to the van to recharge,” the video’s caption reads.

Musk, meanwhile, is touting the Tesla Robovan as a vehicle that “can carry up to 20 people and can also carry cargo.”

“What if you need a vehicle that’s bigger than a Model Y?” Musk said Thursday night before a Robovan prototype rolled out to the front of the stage. Thursday’s event was widely billed as the debut of Tesla’s Robotaxi or Cybercab.

Representatives for Tesla, WeRide and Starship Technologies did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s after-hours requests for comment.