Tesla’s robot waves but can’t walk, yet; Musk plans to make millions
Humanoid robot Optimus to soon be available for under $20,000, says Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off on Friday a prototype of its humanoid robot ‘Optimus’, predicting the electric vehicle maker would be able to produce millions and sell them for under $20,000 (Dh73,460) — less than a third of the price of a Model Y.
Musk said he expected Tesla would be ready to take orders for the robot in three to five years, and described an effort to develop the product over a decade or more, the most detailed vision he has provided to date on a business he has said could be bigger than Tesla’s EV revenue.
Tesla’s push to design and build mass-market robots that would also be tested by working jobs in its factories sets it apart from other manufacturers that have experimented with such robots.
The eagerly awaited reveal of prototype robots at Tesla’s office in Palo Alto, California, was also part of what Musk has described as an effort to have Tesla seen as a leader in fields like artificial intelligence, not just a company that makes “cool cars”. An experimental test robot that Tesla said was developed in February walked out to wave at the crowd on Friday, and Tesla showed a video of it doing simple tasks, such as watering plants, carrying boxes and lifting metal bars at a production station at the company’s California plant.
Interaction
But a more streamlined current one, which Musk said was closer to what he hoped to put into production, had to be rolled out on a platform and did a slow wave to the crowd. Musk called it Optimus and said it would be able to walk in a few weeks.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done to refine Optimus and prove it,” Musk said, adding later, “I think Optimus is going to be incredible in five or 10 years.”
He said existing humanoid robots are missing a brain and the ability to solve problems on their own. By contrast, he said, Optimus would be an “extremely capable robot” that Tesla would aim to produce in the millions.
Other automakers, including Toyota Motor and Honda Motor, have developed humanoid robot prototypes capable of doing things like shooting a basketball, and production robots from ABB and others are a mainstay of auto manufacturing.
But Tesla is alone in pushing the market opportunity for a mass-market robot that could also be used in factory work.
The next-generation Tesla bot will use Tesla-designed components, including a 2.3-kWh battery pack carried in its torso, a chip system and actuators to drive its limbs. The robot is designed to weigh 73kg. Tesla engineers, who like Musk were all wearing black T-shirts with an image of metallic robotic hands making a heart shape, described how they developed the robot’s features with a focus on making the cost of production lower.
New order
By developing a robotics business, Musk said, Tesla is shifting the terms of a wellknown mission statement that has become part of its appeal to investors and climate activists by committing to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
“Optimus is not directly in line with accelerating sustainable energy,” Musk said. “I think the mission does somewhat broaden with the advent of Optimus to ... making the future awesome.”
Musk has described the event as intended to recruit workers, and the engineers on stage catered to a technical audience. They detailed the process by which Tesla designed robot hands and used crash-simulator technology to test the robot’s ability to fall on its face without breaking.
Musk, who has spoken before about the risks of artificial intelligence, said the mass roll-out of robots had the potential to transform civilisation and create a future of abundance, a future of no poverty. But he said, “If I go crazy, you can fire me.”