Tesla Bot reveal shows a robot that won’t revolutionise anything

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has spent a lot of energy hyping up Tesla Bot, the company’s consumer robotic product. The household robot, which was simply cosplay last year, has finally been unveiled properly. Is it any good?

Tesla Bot revealed!

At AI Day last week, Elon Musk unveiled Tesla Bot to the world. With the celebration delayed to get the prototype ready, many were expecting a grand reveal of the product. However, the current state of Tesla’s robot is far from the futurism that Musk has peddled.

In the presentation, an unfinished, exposed-wires version of the robot shuffles onto stage. Similar to CyberOne, its movements are slow and rigid, each action taking too long to look or feel natural.

During the event, Tesla Bot was able to wave at a crowd. However, in a video, a different build was able to water plants, carry boxes and lift metal bars. As of right now, the V1 Tesla Bot cannot do that.

Similar to other Musk promises, the Tesla Bot reveal is another underwhelming showcase. It’s not quite breaking the Cybertruck window — at least that was funny — but it shows that a commercial Tesla Bot is far from the 2023 release date Musk touted last year.

Nevertheless, the Tesla CEO will still hype up the product to his rabid, loyal Twitter followers. Will Tesla’s robot ever reach the “age of abundance” its CEO keeps claiming will happen? We doubt it.

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How long until it’s good?

At the presentation, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that it will be a long time until the robot is ready for market, a stark contrast to previous claims. However, coming from a company that can’t release a single truck, that’s to be expected.

There's still a lot of work to be done to refine Optimus and prove it," Musk said at the conference. "I think Optimus is going to be incredible in five or 10 years, like mind blowing."

A decade of development should be enough to bring Tesla Bot to the place it was announced to be. With Tesla‘s massive resources, nothing should be out of the realm of possibility. However, by the time it gets there, will order companies already be at market?

Musk claims that the Tesla robot will be in millions of homes once it’s ready. Even outside of production issues, is the public really interested in household robotics?