How soon will Tesla Optimus humanoid robots start working?

Elon Musk has announced that he expects Tesla to be using humanoid robots by 2025. He also claimed that the company will be mass producing them by 2026. Credit: bfishadow / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

At Tesla’s AI Day event in 2021, Elon Musk said that he expected Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, to be available in their factories by 2022. However, that did not happen.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is known for his grandiloquent statements that are not always accurate but captivate people’s attention. This time, he managed to raise expectations about Tesla’s robot production.

Even though Elon Musk’s expectations weren’t met, Tesla’s humanoid robot program didn’t stop there. The program aims to launch the Optimus model, a 1.7-meter-tall humanoid robot designed to perform “boring, repetitive, and dangerous jobs” in manufacturing plants.

The announcement changed the robot market forever, with industry analysts attributing the premature announcement to AI Day 2021. A year later, Elon Musk declared that Tesla’s humanoid robots would one day be worth more than their electric vehicles.

The anticipation Musk created for the launch of Tesla’s humanoid robots has prompted industry competitors to reveal their own humanoid robot projects.

Honda and Hyundai’s announcements for 2021-22 are evidence of this. Asian automakers have been working on humanoid robots for years and in 2021, Honda shocked the world by introducing the Avatar robots.

These robots are meant to be a “second self” for users and are expected to be put into practice in the 2030s.

Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot expected to work in Tesla factories by 2025

Despite Elon Musk’s past announcements in 2021 and 2022, it looks like Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot could arrive sooner than expected.

During a Tesla second-quarter earnings call, Elon Musk once again claimed that the automaker will produce humanoid robots that will begin working in its factories by 2025.

Musk took to his social network X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce that “Tesla will have truly useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use.”

In fact, during Tesla’s earnings release earlier this week, the company reported that Tesla’s humanoid robots, known as the Optimus model, “have begun performing tasks autonomously at one of our facilities.”

The report claims that the Optimus model handled batteries at one of Tesla’s factories.

Musk added that these robots will “hopefully” be available for large-scale production at other companies in 2026.

Tesla’s investment in robotics doesn’t stop at Optimus humanoid robots

Self-driving cars are not new. While companies like Google have tried to commercialize these types of vehicles, none have yet succeeded in mass producing them.

Tesla electric vehicles already have self-driving features. These include autopilot navigation, automatic steering on city streets, and stopping at signs and traffic lights. While there have been reports of accidents related to these self-driving features, they have been largely successful for users.

Tesla had promised to implement these capabilities in a fully automated car called the Tesla Robotaxi.

The company is locally producing the Tesla Robotaxi, designed for mobility-transport services, at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Texas. The robotaxis will operate without any human assistance and will be requested via apps, much like Uber. They will also rely on Tesla’s safe driving capabilities.