Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, unveiled Tesla’s first Bot code-named Optimus on Friday. Optimus shuffled and walked across the stage, and pumped and waved his arms in slow-speed dancing moves. The robot is expected to cost approximately in the range of $20,000, and will be available for sale over the next 3 to 5 years, Musk mentioned.
Musk further said, “The company’s goal is to have the useful humanoid bot available at the earliest”. Though it may eventually assist millions of us going forward, it will be first used in Tesla car factories, as per Musk.
Optimus was not as flashy as the Boston Dynamics bot, Atlas, which is parkour capable, but it took Tesla only eight months to come up with Optimus. Musk further quipped on the Tesla’s AI day event, “Optimus is capable to perform a lot greater than what was displayed today at the event”. The AI day of Tesla is designed to display the robot and Tesla’s capability in the autonomous technology for vehicles called FSD (Full Self Driving).
Tesla plans to build millions of robots by leveraging software, hardware, supply chain, and manufacturing capabilities that it has built over the years for the car business.
As per many experts from the industry, it is still early days, and given Tesla’s record of missing deadlines frequently, the projections should be taken with a pinch of salt. Nonetheless, Musk seems filled with renewed optimism. Competitors like Boston Dynamics have been working on creating a humanoid robot for several years and have so far been able to only come up with prototypes.
