Elon Musk claimed this week that Tesla’s humanoid robots will be “the biggest product ever of any kind” — sparking a lively debate over when and whether he’ll manage to put a robot in every house.
The walking, talking Optimus robots stole the show during a Thursday night event in Los Angeles to reveal the company’s “Cybercar,” a self-driving taxi.
The nearly 6-foot-tall robots danced onstage to techno music, served up fruity cocktails and played rock, paper, scissors.
Musk said the bots can “basically do anything you want” – like mowing your lawn, cleaning the kitchen after dinner, babysitting your kids or just being a friend — and will cost less than a car, between $20,000 to $30,000 in the long term.
Musk was quiet about the timing on Thursday, but earlier this year he said Tesla may be able to sell the humanoid robots by the end of 2025.
Nevertheless, experts disagree over whether Musk will be able to overcome many of the bots’ kinks in just a few years.
Dev Nag, CEO of QueryPal, a support automation company that uses artificial intelligence, said it will likely be five or more years before consumers see Optimus bots in their homes.
“The robot still faces challenges in areas like walking steadily in uneven terrain, lasting all day on a single battery charge, and safely navigating around people and pets – a thornier problem than it might seem,” Nag told The Post.
“While Musk is known for his ambitious timelines, most experts believe Optimus will first prove itself in factories and warehouses before it’s ready for household use,” he said.
That’s despite dazzling capabilities the Optimus bots displayed on Thursday night.
“How’s everybody doing?” a bartending bot wearing a cowboy hat and apron called out to guests, with a hint of a Texas drawl.
When one customer asked for a watermelon-flavored drink, the cow-bot double-checked the order: “A watermelon? ’Course you can!”
Agnieszka Pilat, a robotics artist who works closely with Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics, agreed that rolling out the robots within five years is “very optimistic.”
The bots will likely first be made available to billionaires and other high-status individuals within five years, but that it will take about a decade for a full retail rollout, according to Pilat.
“Mass adoption will take time because they’re very expensive. They won’t be deployed. The software is complicated and the hardware is complicated,” Pilat told The Post. “Where are the flying cars?”
On the other hand, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives – who said he spoke with an Optimus robot for more than an hour at Thursday night’s event in Hollywood – is nearly as optimistic as Musk.
He expects the bots will be in households by 2027.
The robots unveiled Thursday night were completely “non-programmatic” and on track to be “fully autonomous,” Ives told The Post.
“What Tesla unveiled last night was jaw-dropping,” he said. “Last night, I believe, it was a historical event.”
The Optimus bots were far more advanced than techies had expected after Musk introduced his “Tesla bot” in 2021 – a man who danced on stage in a robot suit – and displayed a prototype in 2022 that needed to be held up by a stand.
Shawn DuBravac, CEO at Avrio Institute, which helps companies anticipate technological shifts, said household robots eventually will become as commonplace as washing machines and dishwashers.
But he agrees with other experts that there are many hurdles beyond the price point Musk has yet to overcome.
“They can handle simple tasks now, but full autonomy for complex household chores is still some time away,” DuBravac told The Post. “What makes other household robots, like washing machines and dishwashers, successful is their ability to handle discrete tasks nearly flawlessly every time.”
Optimus also can expect to face legal hurdles when it comes to safety standards, data privacy and liability in case of malfunction, DuBravac said.
Musk’s Tesla is under “a very bright spotlight,” Ives admits. “If there’s any incident with a robot, that will be highly scrutinized.”
Optimus could also face social and cultural challenges when it comes to a widespread rollout, experts said. But Ives argued that tech giants have hopped over those hurdles before.
“In 2007, people viewed the concept of smartphones as off-the-rails,” Ives told The Post. “Now, look where we are today.”
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