Tesla Showcases Optimus' Autonomous Navigation, Charging Abilities After Admitting They Were Human Assisted 'To Some Extent' At Robotaxi Unveiling Event

EV giant Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) on Thursday shared a new video of its Optimus humanoid robot operating around a company factory by itself, demonstrating progress made including its ability to avoid people while navigating.

What Happened: The video shared by Tesla shows the robot navigating autonomously around Tesla’s factory while avoiding people and objects. The humanoid robot can now navigate to its charging stations, dock itself, and charge as long as necessary, the video shows.

The humanoid robot can also now interact with humans and hand over snacks and drinks upon verbal or gesture request, the video added.

“Our work on Autopilot has greatly boosted these efforts; the same technology is used in both car & bot, barring some details and of course the dataset needed to train the bot's AI,” Head of Engineering For Optimus Milan Kovac said in a post on X.

While we were busy making its walk more robust for 10/10, we've also been working on additional pieces of autonomy for Optimus!

The absence of (useful) GPS in most indoor environments makes visual navigation central for humanoids. Using its 2D cameras, Optimus can now navigate… https://t.co/R448099uEQ

— Milan Kovac (@_milankovac_) October 17, 2024

Tesla showcased its Optimus bots at its robotaxi unveiling event earlier this month. About 20 active robots walked through the crowd assembled at the event. Optimus poured drinks, handed out snacks, and performed dance moves.

However, the robots were human-assisted to “some extent" to showcase the company's vision at the event, Kovac admitted earlier this week.

The company, however, made significant improvements in Optimus' hardware stability and infrastructure to operate the robots in a public outdoor environment as part of the event, the engineer added.

Why It Matters: During Tesla's annual shareholder meeting in June, Musk said that there will be at least one humanoid robot for every person in the world in the future, implying a total humanoid robot population of at least 10 billion or more, of which the EV company will have a significant share.

“While autonomous vehicle is a $5-$7 trillion market cap situation, Optimus is a $25 trillion market cap situation,” Musk then said.

Musk expects to be able to sell Optimus at $10,000 or $20,000, at a lower price point than Tesla’s cheapest Model 3 sedan, once it reaches high-volume production.

In July, the CEO also said that the EV company would have "genuinely useful" humanoid robots in low production for use within its factories next year. The company will "hopefully" increase production for other customers in 2026, he said.

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Photo courtesy: Tesla