Photo: Tesla
Tesla unveiled the second generation of its Optimus bot in December 2023, roughly one year after an early first-generation prototype struggled on stage during the 2022 AI Day. Elon Musk shared a video of Optimus walking inside a hangar without protective panels, exposing its internals.
The progress Tesla's robot program has made since it was announced in 2021 is astonishing. The announcement was made during 2021 AI Day, while a human dancer dressed as a robot entertained the audience. Everyone laughed back then and laughed even louder in 2022 when a crippled Optimus prototype clumsily waved its hand at the crowd. Things didn't look very good for Tesla's robot program, and few hoped that the EV maker would surpass other companies working on robots for years.
This is something Elon Musk had to put up with for a long time. He always made bold predictions and launched crazy ideas that made people laugh. So far, he has proven skeptics wrong in most cases. He is always late to deliver on his promises but nevertheless delivers. Even for the Optimus program, this became clear as early as May 2023, half a year after the 2022 AI Day. In that short span, Optimus had already learned to walk, identify and manipulate objects, and discover the world on its own.
As you can imagine, nobody laughs now, especially as Tesla unveiled the second-generation Optimus in December. The new robot has vastly improved hands that look and work pretty much as human hands do. It also moves faster and can even dance, as shown in a video Tesla shared at the time. Tesla also developed new motors and actuators, enabling Optimus to perform human-like, precise movements. The progress was so striking that Elon Musk was confident Optimus could "thread a needle" by the end of 2024.
Thanks to all these improvements, the second-generation Optimus walks 30 percent faster and is also 22 lbs. (10 kg) lighter without sacrificing any of its capabilities. Tesla hasn't revealed much about the robot's hardware, though, other than that it shares the inference computer with Tesla EVs. We also learned that Optimus will use the neural networks that power Full Self-Driving software, which is why the two programs are closely related.
On January 30, Musk shared a new video of the Optimus bot with a short description: "Going for a walk with Optimus." However, the walk doesn't appear to have anything special, as it's no faster or slower or different from the previous video of the second-generation Optimus. However, Tesla's robot was shown without protective panels, exposing the internal components. Optimus will probably be ashamed if it gains consciousness at some point, considering it was recorded entirely naked. It was for a good cause, I suppose, so we can see what's beneath the skin.
As shown in the video below, Tesla's industrial design prowess is at its best, as the Optimus bot has a clean build. Optimus doesn't look like a pile of wires and hoses, which is how most other humanoid robots look these days. Instead, it's more like an Apple laptop, with everything designed to integrate seamlessly into the body parts. The torso is arguably the most interesting, combining the battery pack, the Autopilot computers, and other ECUs that control its movements.
This is something Elon Musk had to put up with for a long time. He always made bold predictions and launched crazy ideas that made people laugh. So far, he has proven skeptics wrong in most cases. He is always late to deliver on his promises but nevertheless delivers. Even for the Optimus program, this became clear as early as May 2023, half a year after the 2022 AI Day. In that short span, Optimus had already learned to walk, identify and manipulate objects, and discover the world on its own.
As you can imagine, nobody laughs now, especially as Tesla unveiled the second-generation Optimus in December. The new robot has vastly improved hands that look and work pretty much as human hands do. It also moves faster and can even dance, as shown in a video Tesla shared at the time. Tesla also developed new motors and actuators, enabling Optimus to perform human-like, precise movements. The progress was so striking that Elon Musk was confident Optimus could "thread a needle" by the end of 2024.
Thanks to all these improvements, the second-generation Optimus walks 30 percent faster and is also 22 lbs. (10 kg) lighter without sacrificing any of its capabilities. Tesla hasn't revealed much about the robot's hardware, though, other than that it shares the inference computer with Tesla EVs. We also learned that Optimus will use the neural networks that power Full Self-Driving software, which is why the two programs are closely related.
On January 30, Musk shared a new video of the Optimus bot with a short description: "Going for a walk with Optimus." However, the walk doesn't appear to have anything special, as it's no faster or slower or different from the previous video of the second-generation Optimus. However, Tesla's robot was shown without protective panels, exposing the internal components. Optimus will probably be ashamed if it gains consciousness at some point, considering it was recorded entirely naked. It was for a good cause, I suppose, so we can see what's beneath the skin.
As shown in the video below, Tesla's industrial design prowess is at its best, as the Optimus bot has a clean build. Optimus doesn't look like a pile of wires and hoses, which is how most other humanoid robots look these days. Instead, it's more like an Apple laptop, with everything designed to integrate seamlessly into the body parts. The torso is arguably the most interesting, combining the battery pack, the Autopilot computers, and other ECUs that control its movements.
Going for a walk with Optimus pic.twitter.com/6mLJCUp30F
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2024
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