Tesla CEO Elon Musk and leaders from the company’s AI and hardware teams are scheduled to speak at the company’s AI Day 2022, an engineer recruitment event, which will be streamed live on Tuesday. Friday, starting around 5 p.m. in California. You can Watch AI Day 2022 here.
During the last AI Day in August 2021, Musk said Tesla will build a humanoid robot, known as Tesla Bot or Optimus today.
“Of course, it aims to be user-friendly and navigable in the human world, while eliminating dangerous, repetitive and boring missions,” Musk said at the time.
Tesla didn’t have a hardware prototype to show last year, and made the 2021 announcement with an actor wearing a Tesla Bot bodysuit dancing on stage. The stunt drew mockery from critics and cheers from fans.
This year, investors are hoping for a real demonstration of robotics technology, along with updates on Tesla’s progress on self-driving technology that could transform the company’s existing electric vehicles. become a robot.
Musk has been promising a truly self-driving Tesla since 2016 when he said a coast-to-coast demo would take place by the end of 2017. So far, the company has only released a driver-assistance system. Vehicles need constant human supervision. drivers are always attentive to the road and their vehicle, ready to take over at any time.
When Musk initially brought up the humanoid robot concept at AI Day 2021, Musk said of Optimus, “It will be able to, ‘please go to the store and get me the following groceries’, something like that. so.”
Musk later said that one day, robots made by Tesla will be worth more than its cars, and that thousands of them will be put to work as moving parts around factories, where people make cars and batteries.
In Tesla’s time Q4 2021 earnings callMusk commented: “If you think about the economy – the foundation of the economy is labor. Capital equipment is distilled labor. So what if you don’t really lack labor? I’m not sure. What the economy will be like at that point in time. That’s what Optimus is about, very important.”
Tesla has a mixed record with automation.
As Bernstein senior research analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote in a September 30 note ahead of AI Day 2022, 2018, Tesla “misled in trying to super-automate its final assembly. (i.e. putting parts in cars).” As a result, Musk soon admitted that “excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake” and that “people are underestimated”.
Tesla brought many people back to its production and assembly lines after that, but Sacconaghi writes that today Tesla is over-automating customer service. Tesla owners often find it difficult to contact each sales and service representative at Tesla and be directed to deal with all possible complaints through the Tesla mobile app.
Alexander Kernbaum, a longtime robotics engineer who is now interim director of robotics at research and development nonprofit SRI International, said whether Tesla would impress with its robotics update at AI Day. whether or not the company has the resources to develop something meaningful and has inspired new interest in the field.
However, Kernbaum notes, when it comes to creating a robot that can make all the difference in a car assembly plant, Tesla doesn’t really need to develop a bicycle robot. “The mobile robot will find a way to use it, but mobility has to be as simple as possible for a factory environment, meaning wheels will be the way to go, not feet,” he explains.
Robotic legs require a lot of power, for one thing, this will put a strain on any batteries Tesla develops for its robots. In addition, legged robots – like humans – can walk and fall. Robots with wheels are less likely to tip over. Kernbaum suggests that safety concerns are similar to those in a factory.
Kernbaum believes Tesla would be best served to focus on the robotic hand. He said, “The hand is like the ultimate multi-tool. Hand dexterity and object manipulation are major challenges in 10 years that will have a clear impact on all industries of precision manufacturing and everything really.”
AI Day 2022 will be the company’s first major event since the resignation of former Tesla AI lead Andrej Karpathy. AI day ahead of Tesla’s Q3 vehicle production and delivery report, expected in the next few days.
