Tesla to rent out its Optimus humanoid robots ahead of sales

Tesla has been developing its humanoid robot, dubbed Optimus, over the past few years, and the company has been sharing updates on the program every month or so. In a recent statement from Elon Musk, it was revealed that Tesla not only plans to sell Optimus and use the bot in its own factories, but the CEO also says the company plans to offer a rental option for the technology.

In a statement on X on Saturday, Musk said that Tesla will eventually offer both rental and sale options for the Optimus robot, with the company set to rent the technology out before starting sales. According to a recent statement from Musk, Tesla is expecting to begin selling Optimus by next year, which apparently will begin with the company opening rentals.

Musk didn’t disclose any other details, such as who Tesla plans to rent the bot out to, or what an Optimus rental program may look like for consumers and other companies.

Optimus strolling around the lab pic.twitter.com/E25ttHGsF0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2024

During Tesla’s 2024 stockholder’s meeting held this week, Musk also said that multiple Optimus robots are already performing work at the company’s factory in Fremont, California, mostly sorting battery cells and setting them into shipping containers. He also expects Tesla’s factories to be utilizing more than a thousand Optimus units by next year.

Last month, Musk also noted that Optimus will have 22 degrees of freedom with its hands later this year, up from its current level of just 11 degrees of freedom. The update is expected to help unlock further proficiency with regard to the robot’s fine motor skills, effectively bringing the technology in line with those of humans.

Recent video updates from Tesla have shown that Optimus can now perform certain tasks autonomously, and its walking speed has increased substantially over the past several months.

Tesla Optimus price to be less than $25k-$30k over time: Elon Musk

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