Tesla on Thursday unveiled plans for a human-sized robot aptly called Tesla Bot.
The life-sized, 125 lbs humanoid bot was teased during the company’s AI Day held in its Palo Alto headquarters, which showcased enhancements in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence.
On the development of an eerily-lifelike robot, CEO Elon Musk called Tesla “arguably the world’s biggest robotics company” and described its cars as “semi-sentient robots on wheels.”
Musk said the Tesla Bot was made to “navigate through a world built for humans” and would be able to “eliminate dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks.”
.@ElonMusk vient d’annoncer au @Tesla AI Day son intention de lancer l’année prochaine le Tesla Bot : un prototype de robot humanoïde destiné aux tâches physiques répétitives ou ennuyeuses, basé sur la technologie de conduite autonome des voitures Tesla ? https://t.co/PGIkIN2BOf pic.twitter.com/XCFRCMIqVH
— Romain Heuillard (@RomainHeuillard) August 20, 2021
The bot is slated to stand at 5’8” and would be able to move at speeds of up to 5 mph. “On a physical level, you can run away from it and most likely overpower it,” he joked. “If you can run faster than that you’ll be fine.”
In addition, the bot would be able to carry up to 45 lbs and deadlift up to 150 lbs. The bot would feature a screen located in its head to display useful information, and have eight cameras to navigate its environment. The machine would also come loaded with a full self-driving computer and make use of “all of the same tools we use in our cars,” including autopilot cameras and neural-net planning.
Musk said that he intends to have a prototype of the Tesla Bot by next year and noted that there are still challenges involved in creating and scaling humanoid robots, including how it would impact the labor market.
“I think essentially in the future, physical work will be a choice — if you want to do it, you can, but you wouldn’t need to,” Musk said.
It’s worth noting that Musk has previously promised to deliver futuristic technology at Tesla events, only to experience setbacks. The tech mogul has still not released the highly-anticipated Full Self-Driving mode for its vehicles, and both the Cybertruck and Semi Truck have since been delayed to next year.
In other Tesla news, you can now buy a compact camper attachment for the still unreleased Cybertruck.
