Seems like I'm not the only one with 2779 BYD EVs sold in the country in January compared to just 501 Teslas.[1]
[1] https://business.carsales.com.au/news-room/news/vfacts-janua...
"Because we're really moving into a future that is based on autonomy and so if you're interested in buying a Model S and X, now would be the time to order it, because we expect to wind down S and X production in next quarter and basically stop production of Model S and X next quarter. We'll obviously continue to support the Model S and X programs for as long as people have the vehicles, but we're gonna take the Model S and X production space in our Fremont factory and convert that into an Optimus factory, which will... with the long-term goal of having 1 million units a year of Optimus robots in the current S/X space in Fremont."
by no mean calling this out is advocating for status signaling , I myself would never buy a Tesla for this very reason.
It is also a neat way to reset Elon's Very Reliable Prediction Clock.
I look forward to hearing about how fully functional Optimus robots will be ready to ship "later this year" for the next 10 years.
https://old.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1ph3scw/tesla_opt...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R40IDdAkRZM
I struggle to imagine what the US version of this intimidating propaganda movie would look like. My mind renders only pictures of square dancing.
The only bit visually we see China a little behind is AI but I suspect they have much better closed/unreleased models, and the fab/chip space, but they'll close that gap in a short few years I'd expect.
https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1ph3scw/tesla_opt...
Even if we take into account the smaller size of the robots, it's still impressive, a bad input at the wrong time could easily cause of one of the robots to seriously injure someone, the fact this didn't happen and the producers and the company were confident that it wouldn't happen is the real breakthrough moment.
I suspect this is a pivot to nowhere.
Same with robotics .
They got billions in pocket to either release a few new models to save market or invest into RND to change the market .
I think S, X and Cybertruck are just 3% of 2025 deliveries?
Are there that many unemployed actors available?
Wikipedia notes about 300,000 people were laid off. Not a million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_mas...
I don't know how well that's going to work out for them. I saw these robots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVX6vq0RSnY) on the Chinese New Year Gala, and they look way more dexterous than any Optimus video I've ever seen.
See how poorly the sword one moves compared to the others.
Optimus hand dexterity is interesting; and the handling capacity is targeting useful weights (10s of kilos).
Boston dynamics is the most interesting; targeting "fit human" manipulation, 50kg. Their adaptable movement and walking are the best ive seen demoed as well.
If I’m understanding correctly the pivot is to sell just the autonomous driving systems. This way it can be trained on more data. It’s a hard sell to do this while competing against the car makers whose business they are trying to court.
Selling actual cars was like Uber when they started with a black car service. Get into the luxury market then leverage that so get into the mass market.
Perhaps this is why Elon has been so adamant about not using LiDAR
In light of this I think it makes sense though. Tesla lost the government subsidies so it can't compete. Possibly the only way it can would be to have an autonomous workforce then to leverage that into selling picks and shovels (Optimus humanoid robots) to other automotive manufacturers.
I guess I'm just continuously baffled by the complete fuck-up that is/has-been Tesla motors.
These cars are very long in the tooth so I suspect that the Fremont line has been a shitshow the entire time.
Robots doing drunken panda moves FSD are insanely good using MacBook grade + and not even grass iPhone hardware
few other companies are doing large scale self driving large scale pilots
Cars are already heavily built using specialized robots today
Id say it’s equally stupid for any other car brand to invest money into something not autonomous or robotics.
I've been working in robotics for years now, I've talked with ex Optimus developers, FigureAI devs, some Japanese humanoid devs, researchers, talked to people in conferences and no one. Absolutely no one I've met take Optimus seriously. If a lab is considering buying a humanoid they'll go to China. Hell, even MIT professors that have been crucial to the development (Boston dynamics etc) seems to not put too much emphasis on Tesla.
But I've also been to industrial robotics conferences, mostly for customers and user focus and not developers and usually the perception is different in those circles.
So who are the optimistic customers for Optimus?
I'm charging my Shark right now and I couldn't be happier. I expect my fuel bill (it's a PHEV) to drop by 70-80% when compared to the 2010 Commodore wagon I was driving last week.
(I kid, I also drive a byd, ATTO though rather than shark)
Many customers really only care about price and that it generally works and looks fine and have zero idea about the hidden costs.