Why the Optimus robot is far from finished

Dusseldorf, San Francisco Optimus’ first appearance a year ago was embarrassing. An actor walked onto the stage in a robot costume, imitating the stiff movements of a machine, only to soon be dancing wildly to techno music. “It was obviously not a real robot,” Tesla boss Elon Musk stuttered afterwards. “But the Tesla Bot will become a reality.” In a year he wants to present a prototype to the world.

The fact that the electric car manufacturer was developing its own human-like robot surprised everyone at the time: analysts, experts, Tesla fans – and employees. According to an expert close to the company, its own department for artificial intelligence (AI) knew nothing about the “Tesla Bot” at the time. Hundreds of developers, neural network experts and engineers in Palo Alto had been working on the autonomous driving technology for the electric cars – but not on a robot.