Tesla claims that it currently has two Optimus humanoid robots working autonomously in a factory, which would be a first.
If there’s one good thing about this compensation package mess going on right now is that it almost looks like Tesla has a PR department again.
Sure, its raison d’etre is almost entirely about trying to get Elon Musk his $55 billion pay package back, but at least, they are putting some more information about Tesla out there in the process.
Tesla has been sending more communications than ever in the past few months, and they’re almost entirely in the vein of “Elon is the greatest CEO of all time, and Tesla would have done very little without him.”
In its latest tweet, Tesla’s official account listed a rundown of the company’s accomplishments “under Elon Musk’s leadership” since 2018, when the pay package was approved by shareholders – though later rescinded by a judge after it was found that Tesla’s board misled investors:
We already knew about all that except for the very last thing listed:
“Deployed two Optimus bots performing tasks in the factory autonomously.”
Tesla has been releasing a lot of information and video about Optimus lately, but the last report showed that the company was still training the bots using virtual reality and remote control.
They would perform useful tasks in a lab environment, but based on human inputs, much like a puppet.
But now Tesla claims that the robots are operating autonomously in a factory, which would be a major step.
The automaker previously said that this was the goal by the end of the year.
CEO Elon Musk also recently said that Tesla Optimus might go on sale as soon as next year.
Musk previously said that he expects Optimus to cost “less than half of a car” – so closer to $25,000.