Tesla’s electric vehicles are still a relatively new thing in Malaysia but you can already see a fair number of T20 folk driving them around. Tesla Inc. may be known for its electric cars, but chief executive Elon Musk has said that their humanoid robot may be ready for sale as soon as the end of next year.
As reported by Reuters, the Tesla robot is called Optimus, and Musk told investors on a conference call that it would probably be able to perform tasks in the factory by the end of this year.
Referring to its artificial intelligence abilities Musk said, "I think Tesla is best positioned of any humanoid robot maker to be able to reach volume production with efficient inference on the robot itself.” The billionaire has also said in the past that robot sales could become a larger part of the Tesla business than other segments, including car manufacturing.
According to Electrek, he has also said that it could cost “less than half of a car” and he sees everyone having an Optimus at home in the future.
Watch the video of Optimus Gen 2 here:
Can we trust Musk?
However, as you may know, any news coming from Musk should be taken with a pinch of salt. As reported by Business Insider, the company revealed that it had delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter of 2024, a 20.1% drop from the previous quarter. The company's performance in Q1 was also its worst quarterly performance since 2022.
Additionally, his Starlink service is allegedly part of a plan to establish a base on Mars and he even named his daughter X Æ A-Xii. He is known for failing to fulfil his promises to Wall Street. Back in 2019, he told investors that Tesla would be operating a network of "robotaxi" autonomous cars by 2020. He already promised back in 2022 that the humanoid robot could go into production as soon as 2023.
Meanwhile, Tesla is not the only company putting its foot in the door. Several companies have been betting on humanoid robots to meet potential labour shortages and perform repetitive tasks deemed dangerous or tedious.
Japan's Honda and Hyundai Motor's Boston Dynamics have already been working on developing humanoid robots for several years.
In this video by CNET, Tesla’s Optimus is compared to Boston Dynamics’s robot and the latter is a clear frontrunner in the world of humanoid robotics:
One comment read: “Tesla bot looks like a toaster compared to the Boston Dynamics robot."
Only time will tell if Tesla can deliver.
Featured Image Credit: Elon Musk | X, Tesla | YouTube