A new video circulating on the web takes stock of the latest capabilities acquired by the Tesla Optimus robot. Presented last October, it is certainly not the last humanoid which promises to revolutionize the state of the art in the world of robotics. At least that's what its designers, as well as investors, think and hope. Indeed, in addition to Optimus, there are the now well-known robots from Boston Dynamics, the CyberOne from Xiaomi and the latest from Californian Figure.
The new Tesla Optimus video
In reality, the clip that you can see on the net and which has been circulating for a few days is part of a much larger video in terms of minutes. This is actually a recording of the Investor Day 2023 event which was held on March 1st. The latter, as the name suggests, is the regular meeting during which the CEO of a company (or other) meets its investors.
In particular, the part of the video regarding Tesla Optimus starts about an hour and a half into the event. The first images of an Optimus unit appear on screen, while in the background we can hear Musk himself commenting. We see the humanoid grasping (with artificial hands) a detached robotic arm on a support. But the most remarkable thing is that the robot then walks on its own, without support cables to secure it.
As the minutes pass, the clip shows Optimus working with other units of the same type. He grabs and moves a cable, takes a bolt between two fingers and is also seen handling a screwdriving tool. He also makes a complicity gesture towards the camera, which takes the photo which the two robotic units then watch with some smugness at the end of the video. After one of them removed the veil covering him, revealing the full frame.
It's not a revolution, if we stick to what the competition has shown, especially recently, in the same context. But as Elon repeats, not without adding that Optimus still does not do acrobatics, Tesla is banking on a very competitive AI. Indeed, from an engineering point of view, the company sees the humanoid as a machine on two legs, while the various vehicles are already robots on wheels in their own right.
The objective stated by Tesla and its innovations
Tesla's ultimate goal is for its robotics business to overtake its cars business in terms of revenue. As he openly states, Musk believes that Tesla has the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies compared to its competitors. This could suggest that future iterations of Optimus will be able to move autonomously and solve tasks.
For now, however, it is unclear whether the robot will acquire speech through the integration of, for example, Chat GPT-3, as the Ameca humanoid does. What is certain about the different components comes from what the CEO said during the conference:
Optimus' actuators are all custom-designed Tesla actuators. We designed the electric motor, the gearbox, the power electronics, of course the battery, and everything else, for Optimus. We were very surprised to discover how little was available on the market. There are a large number of electric and other motors in the world, and we found that none of them were useful for a humanoid robot.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
The CEO therefore does not hesitate to say that Tesla masters manufacturing, as well as software, very well. And this is thanks to the different departments and teams of the company who contributed to the construction of the now famous series of electric vehicles. In short, the premises are there and the desire is to put a competitive and above all useful product on the market. Perhaps as fast and better than anyone, Musk adds.