Tesla has revealed that it is not working on new cars this year and the company will not unveil any new model. Elon Musk, the CEO of the world’s most valuable automotive company, has said Tesla Bot, which was announced last year, will be the most significant product for his team in 2022.
Optimus, the robot, was teased in a Tesla China video about the company's new R&D centre in Shanghai, implying that the team there is working on the development of the robot.
Then, in December, at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit, Elon Musk said the robot could assist in resolving the labour shortage.
This indicates that Tesla is serious about the project and the recent statement of Elon Musk cements the claim of the launch of Tesla Bot in the near future.
Tesla Bot
The bot is designed to navigate a world built by humans and to perform tedious and dangerous tasks. It stands 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 56 kilograms. The bot can also carry up to 20.4 kg of weight.
The maximum speed of the Tesla bot will be five miles per hour and it will be able to lift 4 kg of weight with outstretched arms.
The bot will also feature hands similar to humans and 40 electromechanical actuators in its joints. There will be a screen on its face that will display information.
Made of unknown lightweight materials, the bot will leverage Tesla's full-self-driving computer, cameras, AI routine, neural nets, object recognition, simulations and much more.
Optimus at Tesla
Elon Musk said that the humanoid robot is the company's most important product in development at the 2021 Financial Results and Q&A Webcast event on January 26.
This year will witness "a lot of engineering and tooling" work on the humanoid robot, Musk added. Furthermore, he also believes that in the long run, the humanoid robot industry will be more significant than the automobile sector.
Tesla is calling it Optimus internally, after taking the name from the Transformers' Optimus Prime. The electric vehicle giant claims that the bot will take unprecedented engineering to develop.
The CEO has also speculated that Tesla could become the world's biggest robotics company by leveraging the autopilot technology that Tesla has been utilising for the ADAS functions of its electric cars.
The Optimus would be utilised in Tesla's factories. Tesla has been aggressively recruiting for its bot project since November 2021.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
