Elon Musk says his humanoid ‘Optimus’ robots could outsell Tesla cars

BILLIONAIRE CEO Elon Musk says that his Tesla humanoid robot could outsell the company’s vehicles.

Elon Musk revealed that Tesla’s humanoid robot could be the most significant product the company is working on in 2022.

Tesla's humanoid bot might outsell Tesla cars, Elon Musk said. — Tesla’s humanoid bot might outsell Tesla cars, Elon Musk said.

“In terms of priority of products, I think actually the most important product development we’re doing this year is the Optimus humanoid robot,” Musk said on Wednesday at Tesla’s Q4 2021 earnings result.

The unreleased product is being created with the intention of serving as a general-purpose robot that can do everyday tasks, such as going grocery shopping at the supermarket.

The Tesla CEO announced that a working prototype of the bot will be revealed at some point this year.

Last year, at the Tesla AI Day, Musk stated that “in the future, physical work will be a choice. If you want to do it you can, but you won’t need to do it.”

He added that because Tesla cars are basically “semi-sentient robots on wheels”, it made sense for the company to develop an everyday A.I. bot.

The 173cm (5’8”) “friendly” bot will be equipped with several cameras, sensors, and self-piloting software, according to Musk.

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The Optimus robot will also be able to travel up to 5mph and carry 20kg.

And just to be on the safe side, the billionaire reassured that the humanoid will be set at mechanical and physical levels that make it easy for humans to both run away from and overpower it.

“Hopefully that doesn’t ever happen, but you never know,” Musk said.

Tesla’s Director of Artificial Intelligence, Andrej Karpathy, added that he believes the Tesla Bot is “on track to become the most powerful A.I. development platform.”

If Musk’s predictions of the bot outselling Tesla cars come to fruition, that would push the company’s growth, which has already broken sales records in 2021, to astronomical levels.

Musk says the Tesla bot is the most important product the company is working on this year.

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In other news, Nasa has upgraded its asteroid hazard software with some key changes that should help it better detect potentially dangerous space rocks.

Nasa has revealed stunning footage of a solar flare in action.

And, the US space agency is planning for a ‘golden asteroid’ probing mission to launch this summer.