Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk Says Company Will Build a Humanoid Robot Prototype by 2022

According to Elon Musk, the chief executive of electric vehicle maker Tesla, the company will be making a humanoid robot prototype by next year.

The robot will be called Tesla Bot and the CEO has warned that the robot “probably won’t work.”

“We’re also good at sensors and batteries and we’ll probably have a prototype next year that looks like this,” Musk said. He made the remark after an actor in a body suit designed to look like the Tesla robot gyrated wildly on stage. He remarked that the actor was not a real robot, but “the Tesla Bot will be real.”

Musk’s announcement was made as part of AI Day, a series of tech talks hosted by Tesla in California to recruit machine learning talent. He announced that Tesla is working on exciting products scheduled for years into the future to energize backers including employees, customers, and investors.

It was in 2019 that Musk had promised 1 million autonomous “robotaxis” on the road in 2020. Those robotaxis never happened.

If a humanoid robot works and can perform repetitive tasks that only humans can do today, Musk said, it has the chance to transform the world economy by driving labor costs down.

“It’s intended to be friendly, of course, and navigate through a world of humans, and eliminate dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks,” Musk added.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.