Elon Musk: Robot Development Is Top Priority for Tesla This Year

UTC by Darya Rudz · 3 min read
Elon Musk: Robot Development Is Top Priority for Tesla This Year
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With prioritizing a humanoid robot over cars, Tesla seems to hold the release of the new car models, Cybertruck and Roadster. As creating a robot is “more significant” than the production of cars, they will probably have to wait for another year.

Seems that the EV giant Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) is shifting its focus from electric cars to artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, this year, Tesla will be more concerned about developing a humanoid robot rather than creating vehicles. The annoncement was made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday, during the Tesla fourth-quarter earnings call. According to Musk, “Tesla Bot” (code-named Optimus) that the company first introduced in August last year is “the most important product” in 2022.

Elon Musk explained:

“If you think about the economy, it is — the foundation of the economy is labor. Capital equipment is distilled labor. So what happens if you don’t actually have a labor shortage? I’m not sure what an economy even means at that point. That’s what Optimus is about, so [it’s] very important.”

Further, Musk added that creating robots would be a more important business for Tesla than manufacturing electric vehicles.

“I think it has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time,” added he.

With prioritizing a humanoid robot over cars, Tesla seems to hold the release of the new car models, Cybertruck and Roadster. Notably, both the models have faced production- and supply chain-related issues. Therefore, their production will probably have to wait for another year.

Along with revealing the plans for 2022, Tesla has also announced its Q4 2021 financial results. The company has delivered 308,600 vehicles in the quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of 266,000 vehicles. Besides, in all of 2021, the company delivered 936,172 vehicles, an 87% increase over the 499,550 vehicles in 2020. Model 3 and Model Y have been holding the rating of the top-selling models.

About Tesla Bot

Tesla first revealed its plan to develop a humanoid robot back in August last year. Code-named Optimus, the robot equipped with artificial intelligence is expected to perform general repetitive tasks. Presented as a “non-automotive robotic”, Tesla Bot will function through the company’s Dojo advanced neural network. This supercomputer interface can process vast amounts of data. Notably, Dojo supercomputers are the processors that help Tesla vehicles navigate through roads and streets without human assistance.

According to Elon Musk, Tesla bot will also include such features as responding well to changes and 2-legged locomotion. The robot will also use natural language processing to take in verbal instructions.

As for physical specifications, the robot will be relatively small and lightweight. It will be 5’8” tall, weigh 125 lbs, and be able to move at a maximum speed of 5 mph.

The price of the robot is not yet clear.

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