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Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk on Friday said his company's first humanoid robot will be operational by September this year. Musk tweeted that he postponed the electric carmaker's second AI Day until September 30 for that reason.
In 2021, Tesla introduced Optimis, a human-sized robot during Tesla's inaugural Artificial Intelligence (AI) Day. Elon Musk envisioned that the one day Tesla bot will have, "the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time".
According to a presentation made during the 2021 AI event, Optimus will be around 173 centimeters (5ft’8) tall, weigh around 57 kilograms, and have a carrying capacity of 20 kilograms. It will be controlled by the same artificial intelligence systems that Tesla is developing for use in its electric vehicles.
At that time Musk said that "physical work will be a choice," and added, "Tesla is arguably the world’s biggest robotics company. Our cars are basically semi-sentient robots on wheels".
Musk's tweet that a prototype humanoid robot may be working by the end of September generated immediate interest, racking up more than 33,000 likes in an hour.