Tesla CEO Elon Musk assured that the Optimus robot and autonomous driving that his company has been developing for years will end poverty and allow everyone to have “the best healthcare.”
Musk, who assured that the company is at a “turning point” in its drive to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into the real world, stated that Tesla is “the leader” in the field and that “no one can do what we can do in the real world.”
And he added that Tesla’s new mission is “sustainable abundance” that will be achieved with the humanoid robot Optimus and autonomous driving.
“We believe that with Optimus and autonomous driving we can actually create a world without poverty, where everyone has access to the best healthcare. Optimus will be an incredible surgeon, for example. Of course, we will make sure that Optimus is safe and all that,” he explained without detailing how the robot would end poverty.
The controversial businessman made these statements in a conference call with analysts and the media after presenting Tesla’s financial results, which indicate that the automaker’s net profits fell 37% in the third quarter to $1,373 million.
Although Musk repeated past claims about Optimus’s potential to turn Tesla into a company of almost unlimited value, this time he also included a warning about the problems in achieving it.
“We are on the verge of something truly incredible with Optimus, which I believe will have the potential to be the greatest product ever. It’s a difficult project and it’s worth noting that it’s not simply automatic,” he said.
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Later, Musk added that “bringing Optimus to market is an incredibly difficult task” and that one of the biggest difficulties is creating a hand “that is as dexterous and capable as a human.”
Tesla could reveal the new version of Optimus, called V3, in the first quarter of 2026.
“Probably. I think it’ll be ready. It’s going to be pretty awesome. It won’t look like a robot. It’ll look like a person in a robot suit,” Musk said.
Musk assured that he is now convinced that vehicles will be able to operate fully automatically, something he had initially anticipated would occur in 2018, and that his intention “is to expand (Tesla’s production) as quickly as possible.”
For now, in the short term, Musk believes that the company’s robotaxis that operate in the city of Austin will continue with human supervision for several more months and that he gradually hopes that they will be able to circulate without co-pilots, as Alphabet’s Waymo has done for years.
In this chapter, Tesla and Musk face a class action lawsuit filed by a group of shareholders who accuse the company and its executives of fraud for falsifying data on robotaxis technology.
During the conference call, Musk and Tesla declined to answer questions from shareholders about the company’s future cars, believing it was not the appropriate forum.
With information from EFE.
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