Electrek.co
by Fred Lambert
Elon Musk gave a timeline to production for the first time for the Tesla Optimus project, a humanoid robot capable of doing general tasks.
The CEO believes the company can bring the ambitious project to production as soon as next year. It’s an ultra-ambitious timeline even for him.
When Tesla announced the “Tesla Bot” project at its A Day last year, Elon Musk presented it as something the company could do by leveraging existing work and parts from the development of self-driving technology, and if they don’t do it, someone else will.
At the time, it certainly didn’t sound like a priority for Tesla and many saw it mainly as a recruitment tool as the automaker is trying to boost its AI team to deliver its full self-driving system.
The CEO appeared a lot more excited about the project and its potential to impact labor shortage and eventually the broader economy.
When first announcing the project, Tesla was aiming to have a prototype of the humanoid robot ready by the end of 2022, but there was no talk of a production timeline just yet.