According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s 2019 announcement, the electric vehicle manufacturer planned to begin building and deploying humanoid robots early that year.
According to a social media post by Elon Musk, Tesla will be the first company to use the robots before starting to produce them for sale in 2026.
The statement coincided with the billionaire tech investor’s efforts to reduce Tesla’s expenses due to dwindling auto sales.
Due to a decline in sales, the corporation revealed on Tuesday that its profits for the three months ending at the end of June had decreased by almost half, from $2.7 billion (£2.09 billion) to less than $1.5 billion (£1.16 billion).
“In general, we continue to prioritize reducing costs across the board,” the company stated in a Tuesday update to investors.
Tesla reported that, despite a rush of price reductions and other customer-enticing offers, its vehicle revenue decreased 7% year over year in the quarter.
Thanks to expansion in its energy storage sector, it managed to scrape by with a 2% increase in overall sales.
After-hours trading saw an almost 8% decline in Tesla’s shares.
“Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026,” Elon Musk stated on his social media site X, which was once known as Twitter.
Other companies that have been working on humanoid robot development are Boston Dynamics and Honda.
According to Tesla, the company wants to create an “autonomous humanoid robot” to carry out “unsafe, repetitive, or boring tasks.”
Musk presented an odd performance in 2021 during a Tesla AI Day event to introduce the humanoid robot, which was then known as the “Tesla Bot.” The actor, dressed in a bodysuit, breakdancing to an electronic dance music soundtrack.
Musk, who has stated that Tesla’s robot division will eventually be valued more than its automobile division, showed off a working version of the robot that could go on stage and wave to the crowd at another AI Day event in 2022.
A clip of the robot moving metal bars, watering plants, and carrying a box around the automaker’s factory was displayed.