American billionaire Elon Musk has once again created some buzz about its general-purpose humanoid robot development, hinting at a price range of just below $25k to $30k.
Optimus to cost “less than half of a car”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reiterated the company’s target of offering the Optimus for “less than half of a car” in response to a query on social media platform X.
ARK Invest’s Sam Korus brought his thoughts about Optimus, asking if the production ramp of the humanoid robot could be “10x that of a vehicle.”
In response, CEO Musk explained that the “complexity per unit mass is much higher” in humanoid robots like the Optimus. Nonetheless, he still projects its cost to be way lower than that of a car.
For comparison, Tesla’s top-selling electric vehicle, Model Y, currently starts at $43,990 in the US market. Therefore, CEO Musk’s price hint for Optimus equates to less than $25,000-$30,000 in the long term.
In another response, CEO Musk even asserted that the said price range will be “less over time.”
Musk’s long-standing price projection for Optimus
Notably, Tesla CEO Musk’s recent remarks are not the first time he has teased a low price point for the highly awaited Optimus.
During CEO Musk’s appearance on TED in April 2022, he projected a rapid growth in Optimus’ application by about 2025. At the time, he said that the cost of the Optimus was “actually not going to be crazy high, like less than a car.”
Optimus development progress
Tesla introduced its new-gen “Optimus Gen 2” humanoid robot a few months ago, claiming that the technology can finally take over repetitious tasks from humans.
This new humanoid robot prototype showed off a lot of progress compared to the initial versions of Optimus, giving some credibility to the development after many people doubted its feasibility when it was revealed with a dancer disguised as a robot in the past.
Tesla claims that its electric vehicles are already robots on wheels, so it only needs to develop them into humans.
Tesla Optimus might be a complex technology, but its potential contributions to the industry would be significant. These include “jobs that are dangerous, boring, repetitive, and things people don’t want to do.”
