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before of Tuesday ’s net profit , Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the carmaker will begin selling its Optimus humanoid robot in 2026 . In fact , Optimus has alreadystarted performing tasks autonomously , like cover batteries , in one of Tesla ’s adroitness , according to its lucre report .
“ Tesla will have authentically utile humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next yr and , hopefully , high-pitched yield for other companies in 2026 , ” the executiveposted on X.
During Tuesday ’s earnings call , Musk also calculate that the long - term demand for general aim humanoid robot is “ in excess of 20 billion social unit , ” a number he got to by combining the 8 billion people on Earth who will apparently want one with the industrial use cases .
These dates , while broad , and those estimation should be taken with a grain of salt . Plenty can encounter to the timeline between now and then , and if Optimus is indeed stay , it would be far from the first fourth dimension a Musk intersection suffer from a dynamic timeline . Very early on on , Musk suggested that production on the humanoid couldbegin in 2023 .
We do recognize that Tesla has funnel a short ton of resources into the try . As former Tesla Optimus leadChris Walti recently tell me , “ And then Elon [ Musk ] was like , ‘ We should build a android . My squad was tapped to lead that . I led the internal hiring effort for that team . Everything you view on AI Day was a Cartesian product of those try . ” He added that “ at some full point , [ Optimus ] became the telephone number one effort in the ship’s company . ”
The market place has also changed substantially since Optimus ’ 2021 spandex debut . Some have even credit Tesla ’s annunciation with propel some top competitors to break their own effort earlier than they might have otherwise .
Broadly speaking , robotics benefited from the pandemic . Staffing dearth precede to an inflow in investments and a kind of renaissance in industrial mechanisation . More lately , an plosion of interest in generative AI has further accelerated the industry and the push toward “ general - purpose ” golem .
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As impressive as demos might be , however , there ’s a lot of workplace stand between today ’s system and true worldwide - purpose robots . The chasm between today ’s ChatGPT offerings and synthetical systems that can operate and learn like people is much all-embracing than it might ab initio seem .
It ’s for the most part a package / AI effect , but there ’s also plenteousness of body of work to be done to make mechatronic systems that can carry out on these actions at scale . Increasingly , the industry is looking to the humanoid form cistron to satisfy in that interruption . We ’ve plan the humanity for masses , so why not design robot for that macrocosm ?
Tesla was not the first party to begin working on a humanoid descriptor factor — nor , consort to available evidence , is it the utmost along . But while being the first to marketplace does have a bun in the oven weight in this high - tech space , we ’re at the very source of the humanoid robot story .
Some companies list below wo n’t make it , and others we ’ve never heard of may take their situation . Here ’s where things stand as of July 2024 .
1X
This Norwegian inauguration made a vainglorious splash in 2023 with a$23.5 million funding round . The list of investor was even more telling than the dollar amount , with backing from Tiger Global and , notably , OpenAI . It represented an authoritative vote of confidence from the GPT - maker and indicate its interest in a strong-arm embodiment for its platform .
Back in January , 1X announceda $ 100 million Series Band has more recently hired some liberal figure from company like BMW and Tesla . Recent videoshave showcased its smiley - faced wheeled robot , Eve , respond to phonation commands and perform home task like cleaning .
Notably , the fellowship ’s name is a reference to its commitment to demo its robot at 1X speed . Not label sped - up video is one ofa numeral of trickscompanies can use to make their projects seem further along than they in reality are .
Agility
Digit ’s first real gig is n’t glamorous — though , to a certain extent , that ’s kind of the whole point of this physical exertion . The robot has start moving plastic tote around a Spanx manufactory in Georgia .
Apptronik
This Austin - base firm has been work on humanoid for some fourth dimension now , courtesy of itsValkyrie partnership with NASA . In March , the company announced that it had begunwarehouse pilots with Mercedes - Benz .
Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics is at once the OG and the fresh child on the block . The original hydraulic Atlas date back to 2013 . Itretired the system in April , only todebut an electrical version a day later . The posture and flexibility of the scheme ’s actuator caused pile in the manufacture to posture up and listen .
Thus far , we ’ve only seen a 40 - indorsement telecasting of the robot in action . At the time , CEO Robert Playter told TechCrunch that its parent company , Hyundai , was planning to begin piloting the robot in factories at some distributor point in 2025 , with full - scale production still a few years out .
Figure
Back in February , Figure harbinger a massive$675 million raisefrom angel , including Microsoft , OpenAI , Amazon , Nvidia and Intel Capital . The round prize the South Bay house at $ 2.6 billion billet - money . Earlier in the year , Figure announced that its 01robot was fructify to be pilot at a BMW factoryin South Carolina . Avideoof the robot in that setting debuted earlier this calendar month .
Sanctuary AI
In April , Sanctuary AI announcedthat it wasbeginning pilots with self-propelled manufacturer Magna . Phoenix is Sanctuary AI ’s first humanoid to walk on two ramification . An earlier example had already been deployed to a retailer in its native Canada .