This article was published on August 20, 2021

Tesla’s making humanoids — but you can overpower them

It's intended to be friendly


Tesla’s making humanoids — but you can overpower them

Elon Musk has done it again! The “Technoking” of Tesla has announced another product that billionaires fantasize about: humanoids.

At the company’s AI day, he revealed that the car-making firm is making a prototype humanoid, and it’ll be called Tesla Bot — the internal codename of the bot will be Optimus. Shocking. 

Musk claimed that Tesla is “arguably the biggest robotics company” because its cars are “semi-sentient robots on wheels.” Weird flex, but okay.

Basic specifications of a Tesla bot
Credit: Tesla
Basic specifications of a Tesla bot

He added that using its experience of building these cars, with multiple sensors and batteries, the company plans to build a prototype sometime next year. The Tesla bot is intended to be friendly, but you can “run away from it, and most likely overpower it.”

The bot will be able to carry 45 pounds (20 kg) of weight, and walk or run at the maximum speed of 5 miles/ hour (8 km/hour). The company doesn’t intend to use this bot in its manufacturing process.

You can look at the presentation of the humanoid below:

While the prototype is the first step, Tesla wants to “develop the next generation of automation, including a general-purpose, bi-pedal, humanoid robot capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring.” These are some lofty goals. 

Musk has had a track record of announcing things that never came to fruition, so don’t get your hopes up about this robot just yet.

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