Tesla Preps for Optimus Production
On July 19th, Tesla held their Q2 2023 earnings call, and as usual a huge amount of details were discussed about a wide range of Tesla products. Questions were fielded about everything from Cybertruck’s production schedule to the Dojo Supercomputer - and Optimus, the Tesla Bot.
Tesla’s human-sized, bi-pedal robot was unveiled at the AI Day in September 2022 - and was designed with human mechanics in mind, and to do mundane tasks so we won’t have to. The demo video at the AI Day event showed the prototype “Bumble-Cee” navigating the offices at the Fremont Factory in California - watering plants, delivering packages, and manoeuvring parts around.
But after almost a year, the big question from the Investors during the Q2 Earnings call this year was: How many of these bots is Tesla looking to make, and how many are there right now?
Musk joked that the demand for Tesla’s robot would be “immense” - mirroring his estimations back in 2022 that the company might need to make billions of these units. Joking aside though, Musk did mention that currently, only the five showcased in the video - and maybe one or two others - are active. And that’s down to the materials needed to build them.
The point of the robot was to make a relatively cheap labourer - lowering the costs by sharing as many parts and systems as possible with Tesla’s other products - and supplementing with off-the-shelf components. Bumble-Cee itself was built using mostly available, off-the-shelf parts, and it seemed to work well with a re-focused version of the same optical-based FSD software that Tesla uses in their cars.
But as Elon continued in the Earnings Call, he mentioned that the ramp-up of construction and testing has been hampered because the actuators used in physically moving the joints of the robot can’t actually be found off-the-shelf - thanks in part to the Pandemic draining supplies - but also because Tesla wants more precise parts, and would need to be custom make them for that.
You can actually see the difference if you watch the AI Day presentation.
Bumble-Cee is seen moving around on the stage - but a little roughly. This is because Bumble-Cee’s actuators were off-the-shelf. But then, the next generation of prototype was unveiled - and even though this bot couldn’t move on its own yet, we were told that this bot had custom built actuators, and its movement was much more fluid.
And even though we haven’t gotten much since then - we did get something in May this year, when a short video was released by the Optimus team showing a fairly significant amount of progress.
The video shows five tesla bot prototypes - similar to the ones shown on AI Day - manoeuvring around in their lab space and performing tasks. The biggest indicator of how far these bots have come is that every one of the five bots in the video were moving around untethered
And sure “Bumble-Cee” was able to do that in a limited fashion on the stage at the AI Day event, but in the demo video, Bumble-Cee had to remain on a tether to operate, and the bots shown off in the May 16th video show not only a greater range of movement, but more stability as well.
The video also showed how the team is training the AI to complete tasks like sorting - using a VR and motion capture rig to map movements into the bot’s software.
But the important piece of the puzzle for Optimus is those actuators - and the video clearly shows how good the custom made motive parts are for Optimus’ ability to manipulate smaller objects with dexterity.
In the Earnings call, Elon mentions that Tesla has plans to finally start ramping up production of the robots - and use them in their factories to test out their programming. That would be a huge step up for sure, and Musk believes that the bot could be actually useful by next year.
But Elon went on to say that the real hope is that these custom actuators would eventually lead to Optimus parts being paired with Neurolink to provide amputees with bionic limbs.
That’s cutting-edge stuff, but it definitely sounds like Tesla is getting a handle on these robots - so who knows? Maybe by this time next year, we’ll see lines of these guys putting together a Model 3.