I think that there should be some sort of wheels. And even landing gear that can unfold out of your ship. Because as collision damage is used more in the game and becomes a default, we will need some sort of 'wheel' that can help us to land and move on land and space stations without getting damaged.
We also need to be able to make land vehicles of some sort which have power blocks connected to wheels which can then move around. This wouldn't have to be only for planets, you could have it so that your station or ship is patrolled by robots in this way.
I'd love to see patrols of robots like you describe, and real rovers, etc
But the overall collision seem to be very bad handeled by the game. For example, the elevators like we used to see in videos are too much in terms of perfs to be an acceptable way. (If everybody had one in his base and used the server would handle it very bad)
I think that's why shema come up with the new rail system (by the way revisiting the turrets mechanics is greatly needed) to allow momentum without increasing the amount of lag too much. So what we can hope for close future is having "turrets on rail" patrolling (even on roofs/walls) and trains system for land travels (Huge difference with the minecraft rails: the whole "minecart" is a docked entity so you can build it like you want in theory)
Firstly, I agree we had no news (neither for christmas D'=) for the promised update so I can't say if it will be "forgotten" by the next update or delayed (like the previous focus I 've seen on the news)
But I think it should do it for the most part, even if the shitty collision system will prevent us to have true exploration rovers like you describe for very long I think.
But if possible, yes, because it'll be awesome