Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot prototype unveiled at AI Day

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Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company was working on a bipedal, humanoid robot assistant. And at this year’s Tesla AI Day, Musk finally showed us a first look at the Optimus robot prototype.

While the company technically revealed a concept of the robot at last year’s AI Day, Musk confirmed that that one was “just a person in a robot suit.”

This time around, we got a more in-depth look at the prototype and what it’s capable of. The presentation kicked off with a warning that this was the first time the prototype has been tested without extra assistance or tethers.

The live presentation mainly focused on the Tesla Optimus robot’s movement. We get a good look at all the joints moving around as it walks across the stage and waves at the crowd. It even did a little dance at the end.

After the quick presentation, we saw a video showing some of Optimus’s capabilities. While tethered, the robot was seen performing a few simple tasks, like moving boxes or watering flowers.

Tesla designed the robot for mass production and it features a 2.3kWh battery. It can connect to WiFi or LTE and runs on a similar system as Tesla’s vehicles.

Of course, Musk has major visions for the Tesla robot, as always. “It’ll be a fundamental transformation for civilization as we know it,” he exclaimed.

However, we’re still quite a long way away from that. The end of the presentation included a prototype that’s design was almost completely finished. But that robot couldn’t walk on its own.

So it’ll likely still be a while before the Tesla robot changes how we live.

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