The upcoming Tesla humanoid robot, known as Optimus, continues to be developed behind-the-scenes by the car manufacturer and a recent video released by the brand shows the progress it has made since the bot was last showcased at Tesla’s AI Day in October last year.
This clip shows that Tesla has made significant progress with Optimus over the last 8 months, even though the robot’s capabilities remain far behind those of other robots developed by the likes of Boston Dynamics. It is shown slowly walking around a Tesla facility and at one stage, Tesla shows how it is training the bot’s AI systems with human demonstrations.
This is shown by a Tesla engineer picking up objects from one box and placing them into another. Optimus is able to mimic the task with its human-like hands.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk is extremely confident in the future of Optimus. He has previously said that the majority of Tesla’s long-term value will come from the robot and expects to sell significantly more robots than it does cars. Indeed, Musk has even claimed that demand for the robot could be as high as 10 to 20 billion units, more than the number of people on the planet. Sounds impossible to us but we’ll let you draw your own conclusions on that.
Watch: Tesla’s Optimus Robot Could “End Poverty” According To Elon Musk
Speaking at Tesla’s AI day last year, Musk added that the robot has the potential to be transformative for civilization. Indeed, he claimed it could lead to “a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty, where you could have whatever you want in terms of products and services.”
Tesla is thought to be targeting a price point of around $20,000 for Optimus but it could look to reduce that price as production ramps up. A launch date has not yet been announced which is a good thing as Tesla would probably miss it anyway.
