Elon Musk presents the humanoid robot ‘Optimus’ and predicts that each unit will sell for 20,000 euros

‘Optimus’, during the presentation in Palo AltoReutersTesla CEO Elon Musk presented the humanoid robot ‘Optimus’ at the electric vehicle manufacturer’s “AI Day” event on Friday. The billionaire said his robot business will be worth more than his vehicles. A prototype of the robot took the stage and waved to the audience. Video of the robot carrying a box, watering plants and moving metal bars was shown at the automaker’s factory. “Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible,” Musk said at the event held at a Tesla office in Palo Alto, California. “There is still a lot of work to do to refine Optimus and test it,” he added. Musk said that currently humanoid robots “lack a brain,” that they don’t have the intelligence to navigate the world on their own, and that they are also very expensive and produced in low volume. By contrast, he said, the Optimus it will be an “extremely capable robot,” built in very high volume, probably ultimately in the millions of units, and expected to cost much less than a car, less than $20,000. Musk has said that in the future robots could be used in homes, cooking dinners, mowing lawns and caring for the elderly, and even becoming a “companion” for humans or a sexual partner.