Tesla, Inc. TSLA presented at the AI Day 2022, a prototype Tesla bot called Optimus, what she announced last year.
What happened: The prototype presented on stage walked and waved to the audience, with Musk stating that it would be open to the public in three to five years. He suggested that Tesla is aiming for mass production, and this will likely push the bot’s cost to less than $20,000.
Tesla also shared a video of Optimus performing simple tasks like watering plants, carrying crates, and lifting metal bars at the Fremont factory. A more streamlined version, which will likely go into production, failed to walk and had to be rolled out on a platform. It should be up and running in a few weeks, Musk said.
The Tesla CEO also called Optimus an “extremely capable robot that will be able to solve problems on its own.”
The bot is said to consume 100W of power when sitting and 500W when walking briskly, and weighs 73kg. It would be powered by a 2.3kWh battery pack positioned in its torso and have actuators to power its limbs.
“Optimus is a long shot. If it delivers half of Musk’s ambitions over the next twenty years, it would be an integral part of the Tesla investment case,” Loup Funds said. Gene Munster said after the event.
When a question was asked as to why the string-driven hand was chosen for the bot, one of the engineers said it was to prevent play, which helps avoid gaps or stuttering movements.
According to Musk, Optimus will evolve: Musk chimed in, saying the goal is to make the robots maximally useful as soon as possible. He also suggested that Tesla is open to evolving technical solutions over time and is not in a hesitating zone.
“We’re trying to follow the goal of the fastest path used for robots that can be mass-produced,” he said, adding that this would be tested internally at Tesla…
