Tesla is set to unveil ‘Optimus’ robots for factories on the company’s September 30 ‘AI Day’

Tesla Set to Unveil

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk blamed excessive reliance on factory robots for sending the electric carmaker into “production hell” four years ago, saying humans were better at certain jobs.

My how times have changed.

According to the job posting, Musk’s Texas company is now making ambitious plans to deploy thousands of humanoid robots, known as Tesla bots, or Optimus, eventually expanding to millions of people around the world. Buzz is building within the company as Tesla has more internal meetings on the robot, a person familiar with the matter said.

For a long time, Musk said in a TED talk that robots could be used in homes, cook dinner, mow lawns and take care of elderly people, and even ” Friend” or “catgirl” can also become a sex partner.

The robot business could eventually be worth more than Tesla’s car revenue, according to Musk, who is now stating a vision for the company that goes beyond building self-driving electric vehicles.

On his “AI Day” on September 30, Musk said that Tesla would unveil a prototype from its Project Optimus, a nod to the Autobots’ powerful and benevolent leader in the Transformers series. He said production could start next year.

According to robotics experts, investors and analysts interviewed by Reuters, Tesla suspects it may show technological advancements that would justify the spending of “general-purpose” robots in factories, homes and elsewhere.

Tesla already employs hundreds of robots designed for specific jobs to produce its cars.

Humanoid robots have been in development for decades by the Boston Dynamics unit of Honda Motor and Hyundai Motor. Like self-driving cars, robots have trouble with unforeseen situations.

“Self-driving cars really haven’t turned out to be as easy as one thought. And it’s the same with humanoid robots to some degree,” Shawn Azimi, head of NASA’s accomplished robotics team, told Reuters.

“If something unexpected happens, it’s very difficult to be resilient and strong enough to be resilient to those kinds of changes.”

In an “autonomy” event in 2019, Musk promised 1 million robotaxis by 2020, but has yet to deliver such a car.

Experts say that while Musk’s robots may be able to demonstrate basic abilities at the event, it will be difficult for him to influence the public’s expectations of robots that are as capable as humans.

To be successful, Tesla would need to show robots many, untested actions, said Nancy Cook, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University. Such evidence could boost Tesla stock, which is down 25 percent from its 2021 peak.

“If he gets the robot to walk around, or he gets the robot to dance, it’s already done. It’s not that impressive,” she said.

Tesla did not respond to a Reuters request for comments, but Musk has proven skeptics wrong in the past, leapfrogging the electric car market and building the rocket company, SpaceX, though some product launches were behind schedule.

internal expertise

According to Musk, initially, Optimus will perform boring or dangerous tasks, which involve moving parts around its factories.

Musk acknowledged that humanoid robots don’t have enough intelligence to navigate the real world without being given clear instructions.

But he said Tesla could leverage its expertise in AI and key components to develop and produce smart, yet less expensive, humanoid robots on a large scale.

Tesla is on a hiring spree for people to work on humanoid bi-pedal robots, with about 20 job postings on “Tesla bots” including jobs to design key robot parts like “actuators” Huh.

“The code you write will run in millions of humanoid robots around the world, and will therefore be held to high quality standards,” said one of the job postings.

Tesla has over 2 million vehicles on the road.

Jonathan Hurst, chief technology officer at Agility Robotics, a humanoid robot firm founded in 2015, said the technology is “just starting to turn the corner.”

“Certainly, a key measure of success is whether they make money from it,” he told Reuters, referring to Tesla’s humanoid robot efforts.

human aid?

Analysts see more spectacle than product. “It’s all part of giving people the next shiny object to distract and chase,” said Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid.

“Investors are not enthusiastic about Optimus,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Loop Ventures, the venture capital firm that holds Tesla stock. “It’s so unlikely that it works at scale,” he said, “that it’s infinitely more difficult than self-driving cars.”

And then there’s Musk’s own experience with robots in the factory.

During 2018’s production hell, Musk in particular noticed the problems of the “Fluff Bot”, an assembly robot that failed to perform simple tasks that human hands can do — picking up pieces of “fluff” and placing them on a battery. .

He said the cost of technicians to maintain the complex robot is much higher than hiring someone to do the assembly.

“Fluff Bot” is a funny example, but takes home the point that autonomy is often not well-normalized, and so handling soft fluffy materials that aren’t as predictable as a hard part poses a major problem. was doing it,” said Aaron Johnson, a mechanical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

“Human hands are better at doing this,” Musk said.

© Thomson Reuters 2022


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