Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said Thursday that the company is going to build a humanoid robot, which would be named “Tesla Bot.”
“We’re already good at batteries and sensors, and we’ll most likely have a prototype in the coming year that looks like this, Musk described, after a model appeared on the stage in a bodysuit designed to appear like the Tesla robot. The CEO remarked that the model wasn’t a real robot, but “the bot from Tesla will be real.”
The announcement from Tesla was made during a series of tech talks hosted by the company as part of AI Day in California to hunt for machine learning talent.
It’s a demonstration of Musk’s showmanship and his desire to promote futuristic products to energize backers including investors, employees, and customers. But, such an announcement often doesn’t happen on a predicted timeline, say experts.
For instance, Musk announced on an ‘Autonomy Day’ event in April 2019 that his company would have a 1 million self-directed “robotaxis” on the road in 2020. Those robotaxis haven’t arrived at the scene yet. A product called Solar Roof was showed off by Musk back in October 2016 in an event that was held at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. The solar roof tiles on the show turned out to be only conceptual.
“If it works well and can perform repetitive tasks that only humans can do today, then humanoid robot can transform the world economy by making lobar costs down,“ Musk said.
But the robot “probably won’t work” initially. It’s intended to be friendly and navigate through a human environment. It will lessen the burden of repetitive, boring, and dangerous tasks,” the Tesla CEO informed.
The announced robot has the code name “Optimus,” and is based on the same sensors and chips that are used in self-driving features of Tesla’s cars. It is described to be five foot eight inches in height and has a screen where the head is helpful for information.
According to Tesla, they’re designing the robot in a way in which humans can run away from it or even make it ineffective.
Slides were shown by Tesla on Thursday explained that the bot’s head would be installed with Autopilot cameras. Some other functions of the robot include the ability to lift 150 pounds, carry around 45 pounds, and weighs 125 pounds. It can also run 5 miles an hour, Musk said.
Musk told the audience that the robot wasn’t aimed to boost Tesla’s production, but that we’re developing a lot of computers critical for robotics, so it brings reason for the company to build such a robot.
“You know, it should be able to go to the shop and get to you some groceries, that kind of thing,” the Tesla CEO said.