A group of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots walked out alongside the unveiling of Tesla's new Robovan vehicle at the Cybercab event this evening. The robot can also be seen in a video doing everyday human tasks, such as bringing in a package from the porch.
“Optimus will walk among you,” jokes Tesla boss Elon Musk. He explains that you can go to them and that they can serve drinks, for example. “I think this will be the biggest product ever,” Musk says.
After the presentation, livestream footage showed people interacting with Optimus robots at tables and in crowds, but the robots didn't do much other than wave, Astro Bot-style. There was a table with drinks – but the Optimus bot wasn't serving anything. However, at another table, a bot could hand out small gift bags and play rock-paper-scissors with guests.
The Tesla bot wasn't a serious product when Musk first unveiled the project in 2021, when a man in a robot suit took the stage to perform a silly dance. But in 2022, the company presented a rough prototype that carefully went onto the stage.
Musk has loftily promised that Optimus will be a “fundamental transformation for civilization.” And he made bigger pitches for investors: that it would bring “two orders of magnitude” of potential improvement in economic performance and that it could be “manufactured in very large quantities, ultimately millions of units.” Musk said it would cost around “$20,000” and would enable “a future without poverty.”