Elon Musk he is quite well known for his terms, which are usually not very good for him. In the latest announcement of financial results, he therefore expressed himself a little more cautiously and emphasized more that it was only his estimate and not what he might want to promise investors. One of these statements was about a robot Optimus. Although it does not reach such capabilities as robots from Boston Dynamics, it is already starting to get a little closer to the possibility of very limited deployment in practice. Musk claims that by the end of this year Optimus robots will be deployed in his own factories. The goal would be to perform at least some very simple actions, if not some more complex ones.
At the same time, he pointed out that Tesla could start selling the robot to external companies as well, but this would happen at best at the end of next year 2025. He emphasized that this is only an estimate (that is, it cannot be taken as a fixed plan). He also talked about the fact that it is wrong to perceive Tesla only as a car company. Its core goal is autonomy, and if anyone doesn’t believe Tesla can achieve it, they shouldn’t be a shareholder in the company. Autonomy is an important goal not only for cars (let’s remind here that this year in August his promised robotaxi, which has been delayed for several years), but also for robots like Optimus. And robots should be an even more important market for the company than cars themselves. Musk also hinted that not only a robot taxi is in the works, but the small Model 2, which was recently rumored to have been canceled by Tesla, is still in the works.
The financial results themselves were not the best, revenues and profits dropped quite a bit, but the company is still in a decent profit. The suspension of Model 3 production in Fremont, where the facelifted version is also now being rolled out, contributed to the negative numbers, the riots at the Berlin factory also did not help much, as did the expensive start-up of Cybertruck production and the discounting of cars, which also means a lower average selling price of the car (which in addition sold less than in previous quarters). But while the financials weren’t record-breaking, news of the development of the Optimus robot, hints of continued development of Tesla’s small models and more helped send Tesla shares up 12% yesterday.
