Optimus was a major point of coverage at the 2024 Tesla Shareholder meeting, and we’ll help break down some of the key points for those interested in Tesla’s future humanoid robots.
What Is It?
Optimus is Tesla’s humanoid robot, built entirely in-house, from the batteries to the motors and actuators in the arms, legs, and hands. Tesla has taken a unique design approach to Optimus and intends to have it replace humans in mundane or risky tasks.
It is a bipedal robot, built around the same aspect as the human body. Optimus was originally unveiled in August 2021 and has since seen several major design iterations. And those aren’t the only ones, Optimus is scheduled to undergo at least one more major design revision this year, as well as one more major design revision for its hands – which will feature 22 degrees of freedom.
In comparison, the human hand has 27 degrees of freedom – Tesla is quite close to replicating the complexity of a hand in its custom-designed hands. Musk mentioned that with the 22 degrees of freedom, Optimus is capable of learning and playing music on a piano – an intricate task that many humans find difficult today.
Best of all, they’ve placed the immense learning prowess of FSD behind its brains – each Optimus unit runs similar hardware and software as Tesla cars . It can also navigate autonomously, using the same object recognition and learning that Tesla’s cars use every day. Optimus learns from watching humans do things or can be taught how to do something by a remote operator. Elon Musk also mentioned that it will eventually be able to watch a video and learn how to do a task.
What Can It Do?
Elon Musk has mentioned that Optimus’ primary goal is to replace humans in certain tasks, especially those that could put a human at risk. This could be anything from being a humanoid companion or caretaker, a construction worker, or even working in factories. Of course, it has a focus on high-precision tasks, owing to its intricately designed hands, and is intended to replace human workers doing everyday precision work that robots today cannot do.
The primary goal is to have Optimus robots begin working in factories, and to this end, two have been deployed to one of Tesla’s factories, and are working on the battery cell assembly lines in a prototype and testing deployment. Today, these two units are moving battery cells off the production line and into shipping containers.
2:1 Robot to Human Ratio
There are some ambitious plans for Optimus – Elon Musk envisions that there will be 2 humanoid robots for every human on the planet in the future. This is alongside an eye-watering build rate of 1 billion humanoid robots a year – of which Tesla intends to build at least 100 million per year or more.
With these numbers, Tesla sees the market cap for Optimus as double that of FSD – approximately $20 trillion, with an expected profit of $1 trillion per year at scale. That’s an expected profit of $10,000 per unit, which will be quite the achievement.
When’s It Coming?
Given the fact that Tesla still has design revisions planned, scale production isn’t starting anytime soon. However, Elon Musk did mention that Tesla currently plans to have approximately 1000 to 2000 Optimus units deployed for internal use in Tesla factories by the end of next year. This limited production run will be the start of Tesla’s larger Optimus deployments and will serve to help them refine the FSD stack that runs Optimus, helping teach it the many tasks it could do in a factory.
Costs
The next big question is what it will cost. Musk has mentioned that it will cost less than a car – with an expected cost of $20,000 USD, once large-scale production kicks off. Just like the Cybertruck, that means initial adopters will be faced with fairly high adoption costs for the initial production runs. Economies of scale will eventually lower the cost as more units are produced.
One of Tesla’s significant challenges will be scaling to reduce these costs. Currently, each unit is hand-built in Tesla’s Optimus labs. Eventually, this will have to scaled up to a proper production line, which will require a factory. Optimus also uses 4680 cells, which means some production of the newer 4680 batteries will be required to produce Optimus.
So perhaps, someday soon, there will be an Optimus knocking on your door, delivering itself to help you take care of your home. Definitely a bright future to look forward to.
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest Tesla news, upcoming features and software updates.
The Cybertruck is having an eventful November. Just last week, we shared the news that Tesla isn’t offering their in-house wrap service for the Cybertruck anymore; the Foundation Series is now available in inventory in select US locations, Crossbars have arrived, and faster charging is around the corner. Now there’s even more to discuss about the stainless steel beast.
Projection Puddle Lights
Like the recently launched puddle lights for the Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla has introduced a set of add-on Projector Puddle Lights for the Cybertruck. These Cybertruck-specific ones go for $75 USD, or $105 CAD and are available in both the Canadian and US Tesla stores.
However, these don’t have the Tesla wordmark - instead, they feature the iconic Cybertruck symbol and, in our opinion, look even nicer. Here’s to hoping Tesla also introduces a set with the graffiti-style Cybertruck wordmark.
Powershare in Canada
While the Foundation Series Cybertruck has been getting delivered in Canada since November 7th, there was no news on Powershare being supported due to regulatory constraints. On the 20th, Foundation Series owners in Canada began to receive emails to get their Powershare installs started through Tesla’s official installer - Qmerit.
More to follow on pricing and the process as we receive our Canadian quote from Qmerit soon.
FSD in Canada
The Cybertruck Program Manager, Siddhant Awasthi, confirmed that with Powershare now becoming available, FSD for the Cybertruck in Canada will also become available soon. Canadian trucks shipped with a factory software build that didn’t include FSD, but did include TACC and stoplight/traffic control.
Early this morning Tesla began rolling out a new version of FSD 12.5.5.3 for the Cybertruck, which is update 2024.39.5. Will this be the version that rolls out in Canada?
Following Integrated Flight Test 6 for SpaceX’s Starship, Elon Musk confirmed that uncrewed Starships are likely to begin making their way to Mars in about 2 years. You’re probably going to ask what’s going to be in those Starships - that’s what Brett Winston on X asked as well. Elon confirmed that Cybertrucks and Optimus robots will be among some of the first items landing on Mars.
That’s a ton of awesome news for Cybertruck, and there’s absolutely going to be more around the corner, especially as we await the big Tesla Holiday Update. While you wait, why not take a look at our Holiday Update Wishlists?
Tesla software update 2024.44.3 has started rolling out to customers in larger waves recently and it brings several new features - including Actually Smart Summon to Europe and the Middle East, as well as improvements to Autopark. But that’s not all, it also adds a new Blind Spot Monitoring feature to the new Model 3, and potentially the Cybertruck, but that’s still to be determined.
We previously covered the Blind Spot Warning While Parked as part of our preview notes for update 2024.44, but now that it's going out to customers, it's time to see it in action.
If the vehicle’s door open button is pressed, and a vehicle or object is near or incoming, the vehicle’s Blind Spot Warning Light (2024 Model 3 and Cybertruck) will illuminate, an audible tone will ring and the door won’t open. A message will also be displayed on the center displaying, letting driver’s know why the door didn’t open.
Pressing the button a second time will allow you to override the warning and open the door normally, providing a way to get out in case you just parked close to a nearby vehicle or obstacle.
The object detection for this new feature includes cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and other objects - like things including traffic cones, bollards, strollers, and other large obstacles that FSD and vision-based Autopark detect during normal operation. Of note - this only works for the front two doors. Thanks to X user Max, who did some testing for us, It does not work for the rear passenger doors.
Optional Feature
The feature is optional - it’ll be enabled by default for safety, but if you need to enable or disable it, you can do so under Controls > Safety. For now, the feature is only available on the 2024 Model 3, but we expect it to roll out to the Cybertruck at least. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be added to other vehicles as well, minus the small red dot. We expect Tesla to eventually add this feature to all Tesla vehicles, but it’s currently not a part of update 2024.44.
Enhauto’s S3XY Buttons & Commander
If that’s not enough safety and vision for you, Enhauto, the makers of the popular S3XY Buttons and Commander recently put out a new software update for the 2024 Model 3, which makes some fantastic use of the ambient lighting.
With Enhauto’s solution, users are able to tie their ambient lights to Autopilot use, turn signals or even if a vehicle is their blind spot. Check out the video below for this awesome implementation, where the ambient lights turn red when another vehicle approaches.
Maybe Tesla will integrate something like this into a future update? We’ve been hoping for more customizability with their ambient lighting - it's an easy safety win and a demonstration of Tesla’s do-more-with-less attitude.
I look forward to @enhauto updates more than Tesla...
Ambient light effects....
I set default color to white. Blinks green on turn signals Turns blue on FSD activation Yellow if someone in blind spot Blinks red if turn signal on and blind spot activity detected.
![First Look at Tesla’s New 'Blind Spot While Parked' Feature [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/model-3-2024/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg/4cdcb11af7b1c7cf021ba96588fd4f1a/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg)
![Tesla's Hidden 'Elon Mode' Unveiled: A Sneak Peek into the Future of FSD [Video]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2022/fsd-beta-inside_300w.jpg)
