When Tesla Bot was announced, Musk presented the project as something Tesla could do by leveraging existing work and parts from the development of self-driving technology, and if they don\u2019t do it, someone else will, and they might not do it as well or as safely as Tesla can.<\/p>\n
The CEO said that Tesla was aiming to have a prototype of the humanoid robot ready by the end of 2022, but it certainly didn\u2019t appear to be a priority for the company.<\/p>\n
Many saw it as another recruiting opportunity for Tesla as the company was trying to secure AI talent to help advance its self-driving efforts.<\/p>\n
In the last few weeks, we noted what appears to be a shift on the Tesla Bot, now known as \u201cTesla Optimus\u201d as Musk says that the name is sticking.<\/p>\n Musk announced that\u00a0Tesla could play a role in making Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) a reality<\/a>\u00a0through the humanoid robot project.<\/p>\n Then yesterday, we reported on Tesla\u2019s AI director, Andrej Karpathy, stating he \u201cbelieves \u2018Tesla Bot\u2019 is on track to become the most powerful AI development platform.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n It became clear that the humanoid robot powered by Tesla AI is becoming a more important project within the company.<\/p>\n Now Musk confirmed it during his product roadmap update in Tesla\u2019s Q4 2021 earnings result.<\/p>\n The CEO said:<\/p>\n In terms of priority of products, I think actually the most important product development we\u2019re doing this year is the Optimus humanoid robot.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Product development generally refers to the process of bringing a product to market.<\/p>\n With Cybertruck expected to be Tesla\u2019s next product launch, it was expected that it will be the product development priority in 2022 for a launch late this year, but the electric pickup truck was delayed again<\/a>.<\/p>\n During the announcement, Musk reiterated that he believes Tesla\u2019s upcoming robot can help solve labor shortage:<\/p>\n I think \u201cTesla Optimus\u201d has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time. If you think about the economy, the foundation of the economy is labor. Capital equipment is distilled labor. So, what happens if you don\u2019t actually have a labor shortage? I\u2019m not sure what an economy even means at that point. That\u2019s what Optimus is about. So, very important.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The CEO also said that the first use of Tesla Optimus will be at the company\u2019s own factories as he stated \u201cif we can\u2019t find a use for it, then we shouldn\u2019t expect that others would.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Elon](\"https:\/\/electrek.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/08\/tesla-bot-elon-musk-why-1.png?w=1000\" "\\"Elon")
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