Elon Musk reveals plans to unleash a humanoid Tesla Bot

Tesla CEO Elon Musk ended a deeply technical AI Day event with a head-turning announcement: a humanoid robot.

After a dancing human dressed as a robot moved off stage at Thursday’s invitation-only event in Palo Alto, California, Musk introduced Tesla Bot. It will be based on Tesla’s Autopilot system and is essentially a humanoid form of the car. Musk considers the electric vehicles “fully sentient robots on wheels.” So might as well make it a human-like bot!

Meet Tesla Bot.
Credit: Tesla Livestream

The bot looks like a human with two arms (and two hands with five fingers) and two legs. It’ll stand at 5 feet 8 inches and weigh 125 pounds. It can only run 5 mph, which Musk assured was slow enough for most people to escape if something goes wrong: “If you can run faster than that it’ll be fine.”

Most importantly, Musk said it would be friendly (“of course”) and operate dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks as it “navigates a world built for humans.”

Musk repeated that the humanoid would have a screen on its head and eight cameras, like on Tesla cars that can drive with assistance from Autopilot. “It’s all the same tools we see in the car,” he said.

As to what the bot will actually do, Musk wants to start with tasks that humans don’t want to do. He mentioned examples in a factory, like retrieving a bolt and attaching it to a car or out in the real world, like going to a store and getting groceries.

He envisions being able to talk to it and Tesla Bot will figure out what to do without explicit training, whether that’s working with a tool or carrying a bag. Tesla Bot 1.0 will be focused on helping with general tasks, but Musk didn’t rule out that eventually the robot could serve as something more.

“It can be your buddy too,” he said. “Buy one and it can be your friend.”

Musk didn’t give a price range for the device, but said Tesla wants to make sure the bot isn’t “super expensive.” A prototype is expected some time next year, so be on the lookout.

As Musk mused, “I think this will be quite profound.”