Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robotic was first introduced by the EV maker on the AI Day occasion in August 2021, which suggests it should quickly be two years previous.

So when will it’s available for purchase? Nicely, it is nonetheless too quickly to speak about that, as growth of the robotic remains to be within the early levels. The Tesla Bot was proven in a video in Might strolling and choosing up stuff, and that was just about every little thing it was capable of do on the time.

On Tesla’s Q2 2023 earnings name yesterday, a retail investor requested for an replace on the progress of the robotic’s capabilities and requested data on what number of Optimus robots the corporate has made thus far.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk joked that 10 million Optimus robots had been lively earlier than revealing the far much less spectacular actuality. “I feel we’re round 5 or 6 bots… However it’s type of – sure, there’s extra each month. There’s a variety of fascinating issues in regards to the Optimus bot,” Musk mentioned, based on In search of Alpha (through Teslarati).

He famous that Tesla has constructed a small variety of robots thus far principally as a result of the corporate has actuator provide points. Extra particularly, Tesla realized that there have been no off-the-shelf actuators that “labored properly” for Optimus.

Because of this, Tesla needed to design and construct the actuators itself. The actuator is a key part for robots because it creates movement by changing saved power into mechanical work. 

“So, we have truly needed to design our personal actuators that combine the motor or the ability electronics, the controller, the sensors. And actually, each one in all them is customized. After which, after all, we’ll be utilizing the identical inference {hardware} because the automobile,” Elon Musk defined. He added that Tesla is designing these actuators for quantity manufacturing. 

“So, they are not simply lighter, tighter, and extra succesful than some other actuators wherever that exists on the earth, nevertheless it’s additionally truly manufacturable. So, we must always be capable to make them in quantity.”

Tesla’s head honcho mentioned the primary “type of manufacturing candidate actuators built-in and strolling must be round November-ish,” with a manufacturing ramp to comply with shortly after that. 

Musk mentioned in Might that Optimus was ”extraordinarily underrated” and had big potential for the corporate. He mentioned it will not be stunning if Tesla’s enterprise sooner or later is constructed on the again of its humanoid robotic, for which he predicted demand as excessive as 10 to twenty billion items.

Because of this, the robotic would far outnumber Tesla’s international car fleet, with which it shares the Full Self-Driving software program.