Elon Musk announced a while ago that he is building a robot, or rather a humanoid that could serve a purpose inside a house. At that time, it was a vision because there was no robot but a person dressed like a robot. Fast forward to the present, Elon Musk announces a working prototype humanoid, Optimus, to the world.
However, compared to his vision and the current prototypes (yes, there were two robots), Tesla might need some time to perfect it. Here is what I meant.
According to Tesla, the first prototype was built just 6 months after the announcement, and the latest generation is about 1 year later.
Looking at the video, the current generation robot is not able to walk on its own. I believe it will be fixed soon. Elon Musk is targeting to sell them in millions at around USD20K.
The rest of the video is very technical. Tesla is trying to explain the mechanism of the robot. Here is the video in which The Verge has done a good job in compressing the announcement to less than 12 minutes.
If you are comparing it with Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, in my opinion, the most significant difference is that Elon wanted to build an intelligent robot (AI) while Boston Dynamics is focused on the agility side of the robot. And Elon is targeting a robot that is slim and not too robotic. What is your take?