It’s been a little over two years since Elon Musk announced that Tesla was moving toward developing humanoid robots. The company has moved quickly enough showed the first prototypes (one assembled model that barely moved, and another that stood on a stand and waved to the audience), and later the second generation of robots that have received some important improvements and gave more credibility to the project.
In a previous update, Tesla’s CEO said that Optimus «is extremely underestimated by» and predicted demand to reach 10-20 billion units. Musk also stated that humanoid robots will make up «most of the long-term value of Tesla», and will be present in every home in the future to perform production and service work.
For the billionaire’s predictions to work, the price must be reasonable. Previously, Musk talked about $40,000 per unit, but judging by a recent comment in X, he is now considering a much lower price, which will be less than half the cost of the car.
Complexity per unit mass is much higher with humanoid robots, but still I think it ends up costing less than half of a car
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2024
In another update, it is reported that Optimus, together with Tesla electric vehicles will receive a connection to «a private 5G network».
The automaker has long provided its vehicles with the Internet, so Tesla updates its software and collects some data. The company started with 3G and 4G LTE, but judging by the new job description, it plans to switch to 5G.
The requirements are described in detail in the job description, which was reviewed by Electrek:
«Tesla is looking for a highly motivated Cellular Systems Integration Engineer for the global IT Manufacturing Solutions Engineering team to deliver a best-in-class connectivity experience for all Tesla vehicles (Model S 3 X Y, Cybertruck…) and Optimus at Tesla facilities. The role involves understanding internal customer requirements, planning and executing test procedures, smooth ESIM implementation, and robust integration into Tesla’s 5G private network infrastructure».