I, Robot? Elon Musk Unveils “Tesla Bot” Plans

The entrepreneur himself announced the launch of his new project, bringing every robotic sci-fi fear to life. The purpose of the bots is to do “boring, repetitive and dangerous jobs” and launches next year.

Credit: Tesla

The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has embarked on another scientific feat and this time, tackling humanoid robots. The robots will be made to perform mundane and dangerous tasks in the place of humans.

Musk said the robot, which would be about 5ft 8in (1.7m) tall and weigh 125 pounds (56kg). It would be able to complete everyday tasks such as attaching bolts to cars or picking up groceries at stores.

“Talk to it and say, ‘please pick up that bolt and attach it to a car with that wrench,’ and it should be able to do that,” Musk said. “‘Please go to the store and get me the following groceries.’ That kind of thing. I think we can do that.” 

Musk did not say what price the bot would be. Speaking at Tesla’s AI Day event, Musk said the robot could have “profound implications for the economy” by plugging gaps in the workforce created by labour shortages. He also mentioned it was important that the new machine was not “super expensive,” potentially making the bots commercially available

He described it as an extension of Tesla’s work on self-driving cars using the same materials and AI structure. The robot would use the same computer chip and navigation system with eight cameras to sense its surroundings.

Is Elon Ok?

Be that as it may, Musk gave no indication of having made concrete progress on actually building the machine. At the point when a normal tech launch might feature a demonstration of a prototype model, the entrepreneur instead brought out an actor in a bodysuit, who proceeded to breakdance to a soundtrack of electronic dance music.

Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, said Tesla has a number of issues it should be focused on. These include securing its supply of microchips that have hampered global production of new cars and reportedly led to months-long delays of Tesla deliveries.

“Unfortunately, as we have seen with “robotaxis” and other future sci-fi projects for Musk we view this Tesla Bot as an absolute head-scratcher that will further agitate investors at a time the Street is showing growing concern around rising EV competition and safety issues for Tesla.”

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