Elon Musk claimed this week that Tesla’s humanoid robots will probably be “the most important product ever of any kind” — sparking a vigorous debate over when and whether he’ll manage to place a robot in every house.
The walking, talking Optimus robots stole the show during a Thursday night event in Los Angeles to disclose the corporate’s “Cybercar,” a self-driving taxi.
The nearly 6-foot-tall robots danced onstage to techno music, served up fruity cocktails and played rock, paper, scissors.
Musk said the bots can “mainly do anything you wish” – like mowing your lawn, cleansing the kitchen after dinner, babysitting your kids or simply being a friend — and can cost lower than a automobile, between $20,000 to $30,000 in the long run.
Musk was quiet concerning the timing on Thursday, but earlier this yr he said Tesla may find a way to sell the humanoid robots by the tip of 2025.
Nevertheless, experts disagree over whether Musk will find a way to beat most of the bots’ kinks in only just a few years.
Dev Nag, CEO of QueryPal, a support automation company that uses artificial intelligence, said it is going to likely be five or more years before consumers see Optimus bots of their homes.
“The robot still faces challenges in areas like walking steadily in uneven terrain, lasting all day on a single battery charge, and safely navigating around people and pets – a thornier problem than it might sound,” Nag told The Post.
“While Musk is understood for his ambitious timelines, most experts imagine Optimus will first prove itself in factories and warehouses before it’s ready for household use,” he said.
That’s despite dazzling capabilities the Optimus bots displayed on Thursday night.
“How’s everybody doing?” a bartending bot wearing a cowboy hat and apron called out to guests, with a touch of a Texas drawl.
When one customer asked for a watermelon-flavored drink, the cow-bot double-checked the order: “A watermelon? ’Course you possibly can!”
Agnieszka Pilat, a robotics artist who works closely with Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics, agreed that rolling out the robots inside five years is “very optimistic.”
The bots will likely first be made available to billionaires and other high-status individuals inside five years, but that it is going to take a couple of decade for a full retail rollout, in line with Pilat.
“Mass adoption will take time because they’re very expensive. They won’t be deployed. The software is complicated and the hardware is complicated,” Pilat told The Post. “Where are the flying cars?”
Then again, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives – who said he spoke with an Optimus robot for greater than an hour at Thursday night’s event in Hollywood – is almost as optimistic as Musk.
He expects the bots will probably be in households by 2027.
The robots unveiled Thursday night were completely “non-programmatic” and heading in the right direction to be “fully autonomous,” Ives told The Post.
“What Tesla unveiled last night was jaw-dropping,” he said. “Last night, I think, it was a historical event.”
The Optimus bots were much more advanced than techies had expected after Musk introduced his “Tesla bot” in 2021 – a person who danced on stage in a robot suit – and displayed a prototype in 2022 that needed to be held up by a stand.
Shawn DuBravac, CEO at Avrio Institute, which helps firms anticipate technological shifts, said household robots eventually will grow to be as commonplace as washing machines and dishwashers.
But he agrees with other experts that there are a lot of hurdles beyond the value point Musk has yet to beat.
“They’ll handle easy tasks now, but full autonomy for complex household chores continues to be a while away,” DuBravac told The Post. “What makes other household robots, like washing machines and dishwashers, successful is their ability to handle discrete tasks nearly flawlessly each time.”
Optimus can also expect to face legal hurdles in terms of safety standards, data privacy and liability in case of malfunction, DuBravac said.
Musk’s Tesla is under “a really brilliant highlight,” Ives admits. “If there’s any incident with a robot, that will probably be highly scrutinized.”
Optimus could also face social and cultural challenges in terms of a widespread rollout, experts said. But Ives argued that tech giants have hopped over those hurdles before.
“In 2007, people viewed the concept of smartphones as off-the-rails,” Ives told The Post. “Now, look where we’re today.”
Elon Musk claimed this week that Tesla’s humanoid robots will probably be “the most important product ever of any kind” — sparking a vigorous debate over when and whether he’ll manage to place a robot in every house.
The walking, talking Optimus robots stole the show during a Thursday night event in Los Angeles to disclose the corporate’s “Cybercar,” a self-driving taxi.
The nearly 6-foot-tall robots danced onstage to techno music, served up fruity cocktails and played rock, paper, scissors.
Musk said the bots can “mainly do anything you wish” – like mowing your lawn, cleansing the kitchen after dinner, babysitting your kids or simply being a friend — and can cost lower than a automobile, between $20,000 to $30,000 in the long run.
Musk was quiet concerning the timing on Thursday, but earlier this yr he said Tesla may find a way to sell the humanoid robots by the tip of 2025.
Nevertheless, experts disagree over whether Musk will find a way to beat most of the bots’ kinks in only just a few years.
Dev Nag, CEO of QueryPal, a support automation company that uses artificial intelligence, said it is going to likely be five or more years before consumers see Optimus bots of their homes.
“The robot still faces challenges in areas like walking steadily in uneven terrain, lasting all day on a single battery charge, and safely navigating around people and pets – a thornier problem than it might sound,” Nag told The Post.
“While Musk is understood for his ambitious timelines, most experts imagine Optimus will first prove itself in factories and warehouses before it’s ready for household use,” he said.
That’s despite dazzling capabilities the Optimus bots displayed on Thursday night.
“How’s everybody doing?” a bartending bot wearing a cowboy hat and apron called out to guests, with a touch of a Texas drawl.
When one customer asked for a watermelon-flavored drink, the cow-bot double-checked the order: “A watermelon? ’Course you possibly can!”
Agnieszka Pilat, a robotics artist who works closely with Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics, agreed that rolling out the robots inside five years is “very optimistic.”
The bots will likely first be made available to billionaires and other high-status individuals inside five years, but that it is going to take a couple of decade for a full retail rollout, in line with Pilat.
“Mass adoption will take time because they’re very expensive. They won’t be deployed. The software is complicated and the hardware is complicated,” Pilat told The Post. “Where are the flying cars?”
Then again, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives – who said he spoke with an Optimus robot for greater than an hour at Thursday night’s event in Hollywood – is almost as optimistic as Musk.
He expects the bots will probably be in households by 2027.
The robots unveiled Thursday night were completely “non-programmatic” and heading in the right direction to be “fully autonomous,” Ives told The Post.
“What Tesla unveiled last night was jaw-dropping,” he said. “Last night, I think, it was a historical event.”
The Optimus bots were much more advanced than techies had expected after Musk introduced his “Tesla bot” in 2021 – a person who danced on stage in a robot suit – and displayed a prototype in 2022 that needed to be held up by a stand.
Shawn DuBravac, CEO at Avrio Institute, which helps firms anticipate technological shifts, said household robots eventually will grow to be as commonplace as washing machines and dishwashers.
But he agrees with other experts that there are a lot of hurdles beyond the value point Musk has yet to beat.
“They’ll handle easy tasks now, but full autonomy for complex household chores continues to be a while away,” DuBravac told The Post. “What makes other household robots, like washing machines and dishwashers, successful is their ability to handle discrete tasks nearly flawlessly each time.”
Optimus can also expect to face legal hurdles in terms of safety standards, data privacy and liability in case of malfunction, DuBravac said.
Musk’s Tesla is under “a really brilliant highlight,” Ives admits. “If there’s any incident with a robot, that will probably be highly scrutinized.”
Optimus could also face social and cultural challenges in terms of a widespread rollout, experts said. But Ives argued that tech giants have hopped over those hurdles before.
“In 2007, people viewed the concept of smartphones as off-the-rails,” Ives told The Post. “Now, look where we’re today.”
