Humanoid Robots Serve Drinks, Party With Guests at Tesla We Robot Event

Humanoid robots served drinks and partied with guests at Tesla’s We Robot event. 

After announcing the upcoming self-driving taxi and Robobus, Elon Musk brought out the next biggest guest at the event held at Warner Bros’ studio in Burbank, California Thursday: Optimus, which he said he “thinks will be the biggest product ever of any kind.” 

“The future should look like the future,” Musk said. “Everything we’ve developed for our cars. It all actually applies to a humanoid robot, to the same techniques. It’s just a robot with arms and legs instead of a robot with wheels.”

Musk said Tesla has made significant progress with Optimus but offered no timeline for when the humanoid robot could be released. Last April he told investors Optimus could be ready by 2025 and that there was a “good chance” initial units would launch later this year.

“We’ve made a lot of progress with Optimus,” Musk said. “We started it with someone in a robot suit then progressed dramatically year after year so if you extrapolate this you’re really going to have something spectacular. Something anyone could own. You could have your own personal R2D2 or C3PO.”

Despite no timeline for when Optimus would be in production, from the event it was apparent it could be sooner than later. 

Related:Tesla Humanoid Robot Optimus Could Launch in 2025

Musk said at scale Optimus would cost $20,000 to $30,000, less than the cost of a car, making it so every household could buy one. 

“It will do anything you want,” Musk said. “It can be a teacher, babysit your kids, walk your dog, mow your lawn, do your groceries, be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of it will do.

“I think this will be the greatest product ever of any kind because I think every one of the 8 billion people on Earth, everyone is going to want their own Optimus buddy, maybe two.”

For more humanoid robot and other embedded tech news subscribe to our free newsletter!

Thursday night he gave attendees a first-hand experience with humanoid robots.

“We’re going to show tonight that Optimus is not a canned video,” he said. “It’s not walled off. The Optimus robots will walk among you. Please be nice to the Optimus robots. You will be able to walk right up to them, they’ll serve drinks at the bar … it’s a wild experience just to have a humanoid robot there in front of you.”