back to article Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

If Elon Musk's claims made during Tesla's shareholder meeting this week are accurate, get ready for that humanoid robot he promised, some self-driving software update, and an overhauled Cybertruck. Then again, this is Elon we're talking about. The tech tycoon's portion of Thursday's meeting consisted of a Tesla corporate …

  1. DS999 Silver badge

    Yeah right

    With his level of promise to reality, we might have a robot that can carry a couple boxes across a room without falling over by the end of the decade.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Yeah right

      Talking of Right....

      ...claimed the software was "working well for him," was 90 percent successful in testing "complex left turns,"

      That doesn't bode well for us that live in countries that drive on the other side of the road

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Yeah right

        It doesn't even bode well in the US. Don't you want a 100% success rate for something like "turning"?

        1. vtcodger Silver badge

          Re: Yeah right

          Don't you want a 100% success rate for something like "turning"?

          You probably want 100%. As do I. But Elon is more pragmatic. 90% is good enough for his customers.

          1. Ramis101
            WTF?

            Re: Yeah right

            "90% is good enough for his customers"....

            So his customers are happy if their car crashes 1 left turn in every 10??? Or Right turn even.

            It wouldn't even pass a driving test, unless its a very short one and with an extremely patient examiner!!

            1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
              Happy

              Re: Yeah right

              9 out of 10 is better than what Whiskas, at 8 out of 10 achieves in terms of customer (feline) satisfaction

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: Yeah right

                To be fair, that's a choice in taste, not levels of survival after eating it :-)

            2. EricB123 Bronze badge

              Re: Yeah right

              Can it parallel park though?

              Will never pass a driving license test otherwise. I say make a Tesla get a driver's license please.

              1. Gordon 10

                Re: Yeah right

                I know it was a joke but Auto park has mostly worked reliably on lots of models of cars for years. My 2013 Merc has it. Though to be fair last time I used it parallel parked perfectly lengthways across 3 spaces. And remembering how to turn it on takes more mental effort than parking myself.

          2. mistersaxon

            Re: Yeah right

            The other 10% of the time YOU HAVE TO DO IT. You don't just let the damn car CRASH unless you are a particularly dumb person who values their "principles"* over their life.

            (* "Dammit, it says Full Self-Drive so by God it ought to do it! I'll be damned if I'll turn the steering wheel to save my own goddamn life when I paid a lotta money to have car do it!" is actually too long and profane to go on most headstones but otherwise that's what it would say)

    2. philstubbington

      Re: Yeah right

      … and then it’ll unzip itself and Robert Downey Jr will have been inside all the time.

    3. Wiretrip

      Re: Yeah right

      Check out elonmusk.today for a nice round up of his promise-to-reality ratio...

    4. StargateSg7

      Re: Yeah right

      I've got ENOUGH "Insider Information" about Optimus that I am confident that our NCA (North Canadian Aerospace) Electro-Dynamic Wireline Musculature (EDWM) droids "Tyrone" and "Ensoniqa" quite outperform Optimus in mobility, smoothness and gracefulness, strength, agility and environmental awareness.

      When WE at NCA build droids, we REALLY build droids! While they are NOT LIGHT, weighing 500 lbs (200 kg) each due to their all-Titanium construction along with realistic looking (and heavy!) silicone skin they can lift 1000 lbs (400 kg) and run 40 kmh (24 mph) quite outperforming any human!

      AND YES! I did code the 2D-XY/3D-XYZ SOBEL/CANNY fully-autonomous vision recognition system for it!

      AND YES! It is using a few of our 128-bits wide combined CPU/GPU/DSP/Vector Array Processors as its brain. The power supply is a bit iffy since our Aluminum-Sulfur batteries are a tad heavy and only lets it run for about an hour (60 mins) at full lifting and running capability.

      YES! it's a bit dumb since even Two+ PetaFLOPS (i.e. each of the 4 installed chips are 575 TeraFLOPS of computational horsepower) is STILL not enough to match human environmental awareness abilities! Most of the CPU horsepower is dedicated just to machine vision, localized hearing and English-language understanding. Only a fraction of that computational horsepower is needed for 3D-XYZ control over environmental contact with ground surfaces and finger/hand/arm and leg/knee/ankle/feet/toe coordination and motor control for balance, walking, running, obstacle avoidance and lifting purposes.

      Wireline-based musculature which uses grouped conductive polymer strands that CONTRACT in concert when a specific voltage/current is applied and relaxes when it is turned off, allows for great MIMICRY of human musculature and is FAR MORE POWERFUL than ANY human muscle group. Since it works like the human musuclo-skeletal system, it also LOOKS and PERFORMS just like you and me!

      AND YES! "Ensoniqa" is definitely "Hot Looking"! --- For the ladies, "Tyrone" is also stacked like a boxer!

      We COULD make them fully functional in every way possible but that would probably mean the death of the human species due to lack of sexual competition! aka See Futurama Cartoon Skit "Don't Date Robots"!

      While all of our staff is thinking it .... AND..... there is a TACIT UNDERSTANDING that we will "Eventually Do It", android/gynoid sexual competency will have to come at a later date! he he he!

      Anyways, these bots have been in LONGER DEVELOPMENT than even our super-CPU chips (20 years versus 12 years now!) and only until our Aluminum-Sulfur battery discoveries were we able to make these 'Bots practical for non-tethered power and comms cable use.

      I SHOULD NOTE THOUGH! While they are high-performance physically, Tyrone and Ensoniqa have the intellect of maybe a Racoon or House Cat. It will take a MASSIVELY POWERFUL stacked block of Gallium Nitride brain-blocks to get to average IQ-100 human level intellect in a small space. We do HAVE actual 160+ IQ superintelligence-level WBE (Whole Brain Emulation) supercomputers BUT they are literally inside of and nearly the size of a large mountain!

      My "private demo" of Optimus didn't exactly "excite me" all that much! However, from a general public's viewpoint IT IS VERY VERY GOOD and MANY OF YOU will be SHOCKED at its agility and fluidity and it will AMAZE the global media and general public BUT if I put Optimus Side-by-Side with Ensoniqa and Tyrone AND any modern male and female human, Optimus PALES in ability and looks compared to our NCA-built humanoid systems!

      Now You Know!

      V

      1. EricB123 Bronze badge

        Re: Yeah right

        Can you say that in 250 words or less?

        1. StargateSg7

          Re: Yeah right

          We are Canadian. We make superchips, supercomputers, autonomous robots, cameras, batteries and spacecraft. We make BETTER robots than Telsa. We make them out of Titanium, Silicone Rubber and conductive polymer muscles. They are PHYSICALLY POWERFUL and SMOKIN' HOT looking! They CAN and WILL replace all human in almost all jobs in the future!

          ---

          Does THAT work for you?

          V

          1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Yeah right

            They CAN and WILL replace all human in almost all jobs in the future!

            Good thing I work in the present.

            Props on some quality kookery, though. I was getting a bit tired of Geller's "I invented AI, fools!" posts, so a little variety is appreciated. Sorry, I mean a little VARIETY is APPRECIATED, THANKS!

      2. Gordon 10

        Re: Yeah right

        Is there a nerd joke in there somewhere? A google for NCA doesnt give any relevant hits.

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

          Re: Yeah right

          At the beginning, I wondered if amanfrommars 1 had written the post

        2. StargateSg7

          Re: Yeah right

          Try this link to find some OPEN SOURCE DISCLOSURES on new camera and image sensor hardware!

          North Canadian Aerospace

          Scandium Image Sensing Inventions Open Source Disclosure Under GPL3 Aug 23 2021:

          https://www.scribd.com/document/521464736/Scandium-Image-Sensing-Inventions-Open-Source-Disclosure-Under-GPL3-Aug-23-2021

          (softwall that needs account and login to see rest of docs past first 3 pages)

          You can also goto CanonRumors to look for Scandium Image Sensor in the 3rd Party Products forums to see the full docs. These were disclosed ON PURPOSE TO PREVENT PATENTS being filed by other parties.

          Does that help?

          V

  2. DerekCurrie
    Angel

    Let me guess...

    ... It has a cable connecting it to a real human hidden behind the curtain providing the 'robot' with motion and speech.

    Oh it uses Bluetooth! That would be an improvement.

    Why do I still hear the sound of a shovel digging? Is it 6 feet deep yet? No?

    1. Gordon 10

      Re: Let me guess...

      "Why do I still hear the sound of a shovel digging? "

      Thats the Robo-slaves he's building for the Boring Company.

  3. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Mushroom

    The burning question

    Can the robot drive a Tesla?

    Icon for test results.

    1. EVP

      Re: The burning question

      Robots will take over in factories -> people will be out of work -> only robots will have money to buy cars… oh, wait!

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

        Re: The burning question

        Given Musk's prior form with labor relations, his motivation could be to replace more factory floor workers with robots.

        Now, such a fully autonomous robot would be handy for EVA work when he heads off to colonise Mars

      2. OhForF' Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: The burning question

        Will 5 mph be good enough to meet Amazon's quota for collecting items in a warehouse?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The burning question

          What about throwing deliveries over the fence or brutally forcing them into the door's mail slot, damaging both (happened to me)?

          I'm afraid robots are not yet anywhere near to Amazon standards.

    2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: The burning question

      Can the robot drive a Tesla?

      Given the software would have some common parts (image processing etc), the cars may still get driven into things which they are not supposed to...

  4. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Gigafactory?

    So it takes Tesla a billion factories to produce eight hundred thousand vehicles a year? Doesn't sound terribly efficient.

    Dear Tesla: the word you are seeking is 'factory'. If it requires a modifier, perhaps 'large'?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Gigafactory?

      I must admit, that term gigafactory bugs me too. Just how big is a Tesla "gigafactory" compared to a run of the mill car factory? Does it cover more space? Is it more vertically integrated with more on-site manufacturing? Or is it just a new "cool" name for an assembly plant with no actual manufacturing capability?

    2. gotes

      Re: Gigafactory?

      It annoys me that the media have started using that stupid name too, presumably because it sounds cool and techy.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Gigafactory?

        Gag-a-factory.

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Holmes

    The 125-pound 5'8" robot will allegedly be able to walk at 5 MPH, carry 45 pounds and deadlift 150 pounds

    For that tiny minority of the planet not measuring things in barleycorns per imperial hogsheads that's 56.7kg, 172cm, 8km/h, 20.4kg, 68kg.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Yes, it's one thing for El Reg to standardisze on "North American House Style", it's quite another to lumber articles with a measurement system that's only used in the USA leaving the rest of the entirety of the international readership to puzzle over the conversions.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Last time I looked - yesterday - speeds on UK roads were measured in mph. I hope it's not changed - I might have to drive somewhere later.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          I bet more British people would understand kilos than pounds (or at least pounds on their own without stones).

  6. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Creation exceeding its creator...

    Can an Optimus robot run a Twitter account without being labelled a 'bot by Botometer?

    1. Mister Dubious
      FAIL

      Re: Creation exceeding its creator...

      Can an Optimus robot play chess without breaking anybody's bones?

  7. lglethal Silver badge

    Tesla has not even come close to reliably solving one relatively simple task," Marcus said, referring to the years of work on self-driving that Tesla has yet to perfect though...

    I agree with him that it's preposterous that the robot meets all the bollocks that Elon claims, but I have to disagree that self driving is a" relatively simple task".

    I don't think anyone in the field of optical recognition or self driving would ever think it was a simple task. It's a very difficult problem, even more so when you take it out of the lab. All the more reason Tesla should get a locking for such blatantly false marketing claims as "Autopilot" and "FSD"...

    1. John D'oh!

      The key word is...

      'relatively'

    2. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
      Trollface

      Most USAians are able to drive a car, although they can't be labeled very astute (due to a lack of universal care probably).

      So it is indeed a relatively simple task.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        GBtwatians are pretty useless at driving too.

        even on simple motorways, they drive in the right hand lane with two spare lanes to the left.

        Either that or we have way too many confused americans driving about over here!.

    3. DS999 Silver badge

      While I agree

      Self driving is absolutely not a "relatively simple task", it is a very simple task compared to developing a robot that can replace human manual labor.

      Musk clearly has no idea about the engineering effort involved in doing the things he promises. He just assumes if he hires enough PhDs and engineers and puts them in a room together, magic will happen. That might work for mostly already solved problems that require only basic physics and equations that are easy to calculate like launching a rocket and having it land upright, or are pure engineering problems that also have been done before like replacing an engine and transmission with electric motors and batteries.

      But for breaking new ground in problems that can't be reduced to equations and are way beyond ordinary engineering requiring many advances in the state of the art, like self driving cars, mind reading headbands and human analog robots, he seems to think solving them will be equally easy. In those domains he's simply got no clue so he's all promise and no follow through.

      What I wonder is whether he's being told how difficult the problems are and he chooses to ignore the people he's tasked with actually solving the problems, or whether they simply tell him what he wants to hear and he's not smart enough to realize they're patronizing him.

      1. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: While I agree

        > Self driving is absolutely not a "relatively simple task", it is a very simple task compared to developing a robot that can replace human manual labor.

        So you *do* think that self-driving absolutely *is* a relatively simple task, compared to a humanoid robot! Which is the comparison that Gary Marcus made.

        Yet you say you don't, then you say you do, but you don't.. Norman, co-ordinate (clunk)

      2. StargateSg7

        Re: While I agree

        Having seen prototypes of OPTIMUS IN PERSON (i.e. I got a private and secret demo from a personal "friend"), I can quite assure you that his engineers are a lot further along than you think! Optimus is getting near Boston Dynamics Atlas in a lot more compact and quieter package. It's actually pretty shocking how far he has come.

        Our own company (NCA -- North Canadian Aerospace) has been doing humanoid robotics for ALMOST 25 YEARS NOW (1998) and it took our company spending over five-and-a-half-BILLION DOLLARS making a 128-bits wide YottaFLOP+ supercomputer before we were able to do the human body form's motion modelling and simulation at a high enough resolution that we could put that dataset into an android and gynoid format and STILL fit all that motion data and synthetic vision/audio system technology into four 575 TeraFLOP chips that could actually physically fit into a normal size human-looking head. It also took our company's robotics division TWO DECADES to find the right class of super-strong conductive polymers in order to EMULATE and MATCH the fluidity and smoothness of human musculature and body movement.

        Robotics is NO EASY TASK and I actually APPLAUD Tesla for coming as far as they have within just the last THREE YEARS!

        YES! Tesla Optimus is NOWHERE NEAR the capabilities, looks and fluidity of our in-house designed and built "Tyrone" and "Ensoniqa" fully autonomous android/gynoid systems BUT it is A LOT BETTER than most people think and imagine, plus they SPENT NOWHERE NEAR what we did over the last 25 years! They have come a LOT further in a lot shorter timeframe than we did. We are MUCH MUCH FURTHER AHEAD ahead due to our in-house supercomputers being able to model the human form with near-perfect duplication BUT Tesla is doing a LOT BETTER than most people think!

        YOU WILL BE VERY SURPRISED by SEPTEMBER's/OCTOBER's Tesla Optimus Demonstration!

        From a long-time computer science trained vision coder perspective, Optimus is actually pretty damn impressive for what it is! It's a LOT better and farther along than I thought it would be!

        V

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Not buying it

        Gary Marcus is wrong on both counts, driving on public roads is a hard to intractable problem, Task based robotics, not so much. General robotic labor would be harder, but why would you torture yourself? A bigger problem is that humanoid robots are niche, verging on pointless.

        With the amount of time and expert labor to program a squad of humanoid robots to correctly execute their tasks, you could just as readily deploy automated tools and stations that are on carts or straight bolted down. No need for legs and all of that complicated programming. Are human arms really the best fit? If they are great, otherwise just mount the power drill it will be wielding onto something with the right number of axes.

        Then you suddenly realize we had all this stuff decades ago. These people keep trying to sell us on the idea we need humanoid robots to flip burgers. A robotic burger grill is going to look like a smaller version of a pizza oven. Again, they already exist, you just need to tie the tools and stations into an assembly line.

        This isn't the jetsons.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not buying it

          But that is the point being made. This would be a generalised robot, supposedly capable of replacing a human, not a specialised robot, which as you said would then a specifically designed automated system would be far faster and cheaper to make.

          A generalised robot capable of replacing a human is far more complex than driving, as, technically, if its a generalised robot, capable of replacing a human, it should be able to drive also :)

  8. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    All "full self driving" gets you over "autopilot" is pulling up at stop signs, if it sees them. That's it.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      So already an improvement on Californian drivers

  9. Adair Silver badge

    Optimus can replace the Russians ....

    and all the astronauts on the ISS, thus solving the intractible problem of human's long term well being in low-zero gravity environments.

    Optimus Prime will even claim Mars—for the robots.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Optimus can replace the Russians ....

      They'll be robots in disguise, so who knows what they'll look like...

      1. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Optimus can replace the Russians ....

        Obviously, Cybertrucks

        1. that one in the corner Silver badge

          Re: Optimus can replace the Russians ....

          Sorry, I was being silly. I was confused by thinking of Optimus Prime and Cybertrucks in together. Clearly, one is just silly Sci-Fi and CGI, the other is the mighty Optimus Prime.

          1. that one in the corner Silver badge

            Re: Optimus can replace the Russians ....

            And then I realised that I know nothing about modern vehicle terminology and found out that the above two comments should have referred to the Tesla "Semi" not the "Cybertruck".

            Hmm, the charabanc is parked a bit away; shall need the velocipede to get there. Toodle-pip.

            1. ICL1900-G3

              Re: Optimus can replace the Russians ....

              My pa, born in 1903, referred to charabancs and pantechnicons to the day he died.

    2. Winkypop Silver badge

      Re: Optimus can replace the Russians ....

      “ Optimus Prime will even claim Mars—for the robots.”

      It’s already a planet exclusively populated by robots. Musk’s effort would need to get in line.

    3. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: Optimus Prime will even claim Mars—for the robots

      He'll have to fight Opportunity: https://xkcd.com/1504/

  10. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

    Licencing

    There would I guess be interest from some quarters to licence the technology and offer it with certain added features...

    or even hacks to convert it to a _____ robot.

    Now, where's Paris?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Somewhere south of Brussels.

      Either that, or check the nearest disco.

    2. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: Licencing

      Now, where's Paris?

      Texas?

  11. Andy 73 Silver badge

    Given that...

    Honda introduced Asimo some twenty two years ago, and Boston Dynamics introduce a new robot on a monthly basis, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Musk unveils a "working" humanoid form robot this year.

    However, the definition of "working" will depend on who you're talking to. The fans will insist it (like FSD) is just one software update away from being a real boy.. sorry being a functional human assistant. The cynics will point out that so far autonomy has escaped all researchers, and the Honda and Dynamics machines are expensive, complex and require human direction to perform most tasks.

    As such, practical uses of this class of machine tend to be extremely limited. Like the mythical robotaxi, the futurologists get excited about a future that just doesn't bear much scrutiny.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Given that...

      Yep, at best it will pick up a box and carry it across the stage and put it down, and his acolytes will cheer wildly, and Tesla stock will jump after he tweets something stupid claiming there will be a million robots in two years replacing people performing all sorts of dangerous work.

      Like the zero Tesla robotaxis that will be on the road earning $100K for their owners each year by the end of this decade (when he promised that in 2020) we'll see zero Tesla robots replacing a single human in any task in the same timeframe. Or ever. At most you'll be able to tell them to grab you a beer from the fridge, and even that will take him years to manage.

    2. StargateSg7

      Re: Given that...

      After having seen a "Private Demo" (unapproved by Elon of course!), AND noting that I basically have 30+ years of Synthetic Vision Systems coding experience, I am quite surprised at HOW FAR ALONG Tesla is after only THREE YEARS of in-house development. It is my opinion that teh Tesla Optimus android will start surpassing Boston Dynamics Atlas as soon as the next software update. It's smaller, smoother and quieter than Atlas and matches its agility.

      The September/October demo will be limited in scope BUT it does showcase that Tesla Engineers KNOW what they are doing and that Optimus will be a viable GENERAL PURPOSE REPLACEMENT for MANY labour intensive service jobs within as short a time frame as 5 years!

      Sorry kiddos! I've been doing vision a LOOOOOOONG TIME! Optimus is a LOT BETTER and farther ahead than you think!

      Amazon Warehouse workers, UPS, Fedex and even Starbucks and McDonalds workers are pretty much DOOMED! By 2027, you will start seeing Optimus (or NCA) bots in multiple business settings. General warehouse order picking, sorting, shipping/receiving, facilities cleaning and backroom food services are THE FIRST JOBS that will be replaced by these systems. After that it will be hotel/retail backroom jobs, room cleaning, dishwashing, and lower-end cooking/baking services. Delivery persons and front desk CSR work and coffee baristas, food servers.hostesses will be soon after. It really ONLY is just a battery problem that is holding people back from going all out on robots being EVERYWHERE in EVERY JOB!

      ---

      (Sorry! But I just can't help this big dig though: Optimus is DEFINITELY NOT as agile, smart, fast or as "Hot Looking" as the in-house NCA-built Tyrone android and Ensoniqa gynoid systems! --- We are literally MILES AHEAD of Boston Dynamics Atlas, Festo, Honda Asimo, Sony, Samsung, Hyundai, Tesla Optimus, etc, etc. --- Ours at least LOOK and ACT human due to the onboard FOUR of our 575 TeraFLOPS 128-bits wide super-chips and the very realistic looking silicone rubber skins!)

  12. Howard Sway Silver badge

    an investor asked Musk about the status of the Tesla Cybertruck, of which little has been seen

    Wait for the presentation : The Optimus robot transforms into a cybertruck.

    Either that, or this year the actor in the bodysuit will have an aerial stuck on their head.

    I'm sort of suspecting lots of other mostly ridiculous ideas, full of wild overpromising, which he "sadly" will end up being unable to bestow upon the human race, due to the financial meltdown of his idiotic twitter takeover fiasco.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: an investor asked Musk about the status of the Tesla Cybertruck, of which little has been seen

      There was also a semi that was supposed to be on the road in the thousands long before today that not a peep has been heard from.

      I'm sure there will be some new bullshit on stage, because his believers are too stupid to remember all the failed promises of the past and will drive up Tesla's stock price based on the wild claims he makes for new products he claims to be working on. That will give him enough ready cash to buy Twitter at the agreed upon price as the court is likely to force him to do.

  13. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Coat

    "this year, I swear."

    Didn't your mother teach you that swearing was not a good thing ?

    Honestly, with all the stupid things you've said for the past twenty years, one would think you'd have learned to shut up by now.

    But no, obviously you don't learn a thing.

    By the way, how's that Hyperloop going ?

    Oh, yeah, it's not.

  14. DenTheMan

    For your daily Mash

    This will be great for unattended Smash.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: For your daily Mash

      Smash? Robots? Aliens?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ph6zTdRZyY

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm confused

    I thought that Musk was the humanoid fobot? He has all the elements for the uncomfortable uncanny valley, including being totally out of tune with social norms.

    1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

      Re: I'm confused

      No, it is his pal Mark Z.

    2. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: I'm confused

      For a couple of centuries after the widespread adoption of the printing press, 'social norms' involved burning unpopular women as witches.

      I'm sure if you think about it, it won't take long for you to find other examples in history of social norms being different to our own.

      So it would appear that conforming to social norms is not in itself a route to goodness.

      Arguments based upon first principles, on the other hand, I can attempt to engage in. Whilst trying to avoid the hubris of believing that I'm not shaped by the social norms that went before me. That why Matt Groening and Kurt Vonnegut identify with the Unitarians.

  16. Teejay

    Tesla shares

    After what I just read, I would downgrade Tesla to 'sell'.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Tesla shares

      However the market isn't based on what you think, its based on what other people think different other people think the other other people think

      1. DJO Silver badge

        Re: Tesla shares

        Tesla are no longer alone in the luxury end of the EV market, for example the Jaguar I-Pace base model is a bit dearer than the basic Tesla, but the top of the range Jags are a lot cheaper than the top of the range Teslas.

        Can't see Tesla maintaining the proportion of the market they've enjoyed over the last few years.

        As for the robot, if connected to a computer through a power and control umbilical then no real problem, but a self powered autonomous humanoid robot that will run for more than 30 minutes on a charge, no chance for at least 10 years.

        1. Mike VandeVelde
          Terminator

          Teslas

          I drive around Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada every workday and I am almost never out of sight of at least one Tesla. Sometimes 2 or 3 at a time. And parades of Amazon vans coming out of several massive warehouses. I am not at all pessimistic about seeing them all driverless this decade. If civilization survives climate change etc for that long.

          1. DJO Silver badge

            Re: Teslas

            But how many of the non-Tesla cars are EVs or hybrids? It can be tricky to tell from a distance.

            Where I work we've put some public facing charge points up and while Tesla is probably the single most common manufacturer we see represented, they are by far outnumbered by non-Teslas and the ratio is shifting away from Tesla every month. Most of the increase is at the less luxurious end of the market with Nissans, light commercials and similar sized cars although the Jags are becoming more common.

            The market penetration depends on charging facilities, anyone who can afford £50k+ for a car will probably live in a house with off-road parking so can install a charger but a large proportion of people on lower incomes do not have anywhere to place a charger so we need far more public chargers.

            1. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

              Re: Teslas

              Yeah, I live in an end terrace, so cannot guarantee getting parked outside my house, so a pure EV is out of the question. I recently test drove a PHEV, so when we move, I could utilise the plugin aspect and get cheap travel for local journeys. On public charging points, the local supermarket has charging points, they were free to use at one point, but there's no infomration on their web site about whether they are free, or chargeable, or what the spec is,.. so they've gone to the trouble of putting them in, but aren't really poromoting them, which seems odd to me.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                PHEV

                You can probably charge off a standard outlet, and in most cases you will have to. There is little incentive for installing the non-fast DC charge ports, so if you have a L2 plug, best of luck, there will be 4 cars for every plug and that will keep getting worse as they aren't adding new plugs, but the number of cars is going up.

                The economics of pay to charge for L2 aren't attractive, as the cars need to stay docked longer, and take less power, so the margin is terrible, Some places like malls and markets dropped a couple of free chargers in the back of their lots, but there aren't nearly enough. And there is no national level plan to ensure that new charge points support the (supposedly) national standard L2 plug. So if you have an non-dc charge EV or PHEV you are going to need to charge at home or work(if you are very very lucky).

                Even then, the DC charge format will probably change again in a couple of years, leaving the same issues to play out all over again. They should have either mandated DC charge points to have a 240v plug point available, or made it so you could drop in an adapter to the vehicle/charge cable.

                1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. StargateSg7

            Re: Teslas

            Vancouver is FILLED with Teslas and other EVs! I've even seen the Ford F150 Lightning and various BMW EVs. Here in Metro Vancouver area, environmentalism has always been a big thing here. Soon EV users will be able to ENJOY the use of fancy new battery technology super-fast charging and advanced environmentally friendly Megawatt to Terawatt-class mains power production systems!

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Tesla shares

        So if the upshot of that is that the market for Tesla shares goes up it seems a good time to sell.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tesla shares

      I already have them marked as “never buy”

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Given some of Musk's history, I wouldn't be surprised if it is a sex-bot. :P

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      penetration test?

      A long while ago I read an article about The Future, robotics, and robotic sex partners. One of the interviewees quipped about who would be the first to test drive the mechanical vagina. I nominate Elon.

      1. Wiretrip

        Re: penetration test?

        The resulting scandal would be called 'elongate'. Mind you hasn't he been working on an 'electric semi' for a few years now?

  18. renniks

    As Musk himself is more spin than anything else, he should have called his company Edison instead of Tesla

  19. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    re :Say, what's the Boring Company up to these days?

    As far as I can gather, they are digging tunnels for roughly the same price per mile as (and a lot more slowly than) companies using the existing, supposedly less efficient methods.

  20. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    If it's revealed in September does he propose to send it to court as his defence lawyer in October? Assuming it's the coming September of course.

  21. Wiretrip

    Always worth checking elonmusk.today for a lovely roundup of his promise-to-reality ratio.

  22. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    As long as:

    - it's got some stupid 'fun' mode where it dances a jig if you say 'Elon is a god'

    - it's very very expensive

    - it has no practical use-cases... yet. They're all 'planned' and will be released 'in due course'

    - it can prepare coffee (after safety software update)

    - it can carry a specific box safely across a mapped room in less than 10 minutes (after safety software update)

    - it has a battery that lasts nearly an hour (though it'll actually last 10 minutes; if you want an hour, you'll need to pay extra per month to 'unlock' the battery)

    - it has a 90% success rate in walking in a straight line for 10 metres without killing a spectator

    - it has a gun (American market only)

    - it doesn't really exist

  23. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

    "Tesla had recently manufactured its three millionth car since beginning production in 2012"

    And Ford have shipped some 350Million since 1903, so it still amazes me Tesla has a higher market cap. Well, a higher market cap than all the top motor manufacturers combined. Fun bit of history, in early 2000, Palm Computing Inc had a higher market cap than Ford. Remember Palm?

  24. tiggity Silver badge

    Pointless robot

    The 125-pound 5'8" robot will allegedly be able to walk at 5 MPH, carry 45 pounds and deadlift 150 pounds, using visual sensors in its head and "human-level" hands.

    That's not even a 25kg lift (UK bag of cement weight & also UK male Health & Safety safe lifting weight for men (16 for women, though nobody told the woman at our local merchants who nonchalant carries heavy bags of around as if they are full of feathers ))

    ... and obviously lots of places flout the minimum weight rules as any parcel delivery driver will tell you - over 25kg packages occur quite often (and packages exceeding 16kg female limit, very often)

    So, not going to be a person replacement in many manual handling roles.

    1. KBeee

      Re: Pointless robot

      When I was a child, all the heating in our flat was done by coal fires. Cooking and hot water was gas, but heating each room was by open coal fires.

      Every couple of weeks the coal lorry would stop by, and if you needed coal you'd shout out the window something like "One sack to flat 20"..

      These flats were 4 floors high with no lifts.

      The coalmen would RUN up the stairs with a 1cwt (112 lb.) sack over their shoulder!

      I suspect they never needed to go to the gym...

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