Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robotic was first introduced by the EV maker on the AI Day occasion in August 2021, which implies it would quickly be two years outdated.
So when will it’s that can be purchased? Properly, it is nonetheless too quickly to speak about that, as improvement of the robotic remains to be within the early levels. The Tesla Bot was proven in a video in Might strolling and selecting up stuff, and that was just about all the things it was in a position to do on the time.
On Tesla’s Q2 2023 earnings name yesterday, a retail investor requested for an replace on the progress of the robotic’s capabilities and requested info on what number of Optimus robots the corporate has made thus far.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk joked that 10 million Optimus robots have been energetic earlier than revealing the far much less spectacular actuality. “I believe we’re round 5 or 6 bots… But it surely’s form of – sure, there’s extra each month. There’s plenty of fascinating issues concerning the Optimus bot,” Musk stated, based on Searching for Alpha (through Teslarati).
He famous that Tesla has constructed a small variety of robots thus far principally as a result of the corporate has actuator provide points. Extra particularly, Tesla realized that there have been no off-the-shelf actuators that “labored properly” for Optimus.
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Because of this, Tesla needed to design and construct the actuators itself. The actuator is a key element for robots because it creates movement by changing saved vitality into mechanical work.
“So, we have truly needed to design our personal actuators that combine the motor or the ability electronics, the controller, the sensors. And actually, each one in every of them is customized. After which, in fact, we’ll be utilizing the identical inference {hardware} because the automotive,” Elon Musk defined. He added that Tesla is designing these actuators for quantity manufacturing.
“So, they are not simply lighter, tighter, and extra succesful than another actuators wherever that exists on the planet, nevertheless it’s additionally truly manufacturable. So, we must always be capable to make them in quantity.”
Tesla’s head honcho stated the primary “form of manufacturing candidate actuators built-in and strolling must be round November-ish,” with a manufacturing ramp to observe shortly after that.
Musk stated in Might that Optimus was “extraordinarily underrated” and had big potential for the corporate. He stated it might not be shocking if Tesla’s enterprise sooner or later is constructed on the again of its humanoid robotic, for which he predicted demand as excessive as 10 to twenty billion items.
Because of this, the robotic would far outnumber Tesla’s world automobile fleet, with which it shares the Full Self-Driving software program.