Tesla AI Day 2022: Musk unveils humanoid robot Optimus; here's what we know

According to Elon Musk, this humaoid prototype can do more than what was shown live. However, the first time it operated without a tether was during Tesla AI Day event

On Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a prototype of a humanoid "Optimus" robot that shares some Artificial Intelligence (AI) software and sensors with its cars' Autopilot driver assistance features.

Optimus was revealed at Tesla AI Day 2022, an event which aimed to demonstrate how far the company's autonomous robot and vehicle research has come.

According to media reports, the event gave the first look of Optimus, strolling around the stage, updates on new self-driving software and also a first look at the Dojo hardware powering Tesla's AI research.

According to Elon Musk, this humanoid prototype can do more than what was shown live. However, it first operated without a tether during the Tesla AI Day event. Musk also claimed that the difference between Tesla's humanoid and other very impressive humanoid robot demonstrations is that Tesla's Optimus is made for mass production in the "millions" of units and to be very capable.

Here's what we know so far about the Tesla AI Day 2022:

Optimus walks on its own

The working version of the Optimus was unveiled after a long delay. It weighs 73kg, packs a 2.3kWh battery and uses third-party actuators to walk around and wave under its power. The next Optimus was hauled but only to tease the audience, and it was a sleeker model with a metal casing covering its torso and limbs with Tesla-built actuators. Following the launch of Optimus, Musk took to Twitter to announce that there will also be a catgirl version of the Optimus robot.

Full Self-driving grows to 160,000 beta users

Tesla's autopilot team explained how far they have come with full self-driving, which has expanded its beta from 2,000 Tesla drivers last year to 160,000 this year. Even though it is currently only available in the US and Canada, Elon Musk hinted at a possible global expansion. The engineers also explained how they have sped up the decision-making capabilities of the car, from weighing options in milliseconds to 100 microseconds, which is ten times faster. They also showed how FSD's tech sees the world around Tesla's map in 3D geometry and makes choices based on what is around them.

What is Dojo

The company is also starting to build a massive, custom-built stack of hardware called Dojo to train its AI n all the videos its cars are picking up and beaming back to Tesla.