This video shows some of Tesla’s competition in the humanoid space. Interestingly, the robot doesn’t have human-like hands and is on wheels.
I think this video reveals some of the problems that Tesla is going to run into by trying to develop a generalized humanoid robot instead of picking a task (e.g., household chores) and then developing a robot to do that task. Tesla is likely to end up with a robot that does a lot of things poorly instead of doing one or a few things expertly.
Another video on Optimus competitors. I haven’t seen any videos on Optimus itself recently.
This is probably the biggest issue. There are lots of other now in the space. Tesla (the car) had little serious competition in their area, SpaceX the same. I’ve seen a half a dozen Chinese prototypes and others all vying for a yet unknown marketl.
So…good luck with that. Might come true. Also: might not.
Battery life has to be a limitation. Light weight probably limits size to motorcycle battery. Short service life likely especially w multiple motors running to do complex task.
Golf cart sized robot has more power but not suitable in most homes.
Here’s one of the more impressive humanoid robots, the Figure 03, presumably doing real work:
Yes, always easy to forget that Tesla had 25 - 50 gas car competitors that all had tens of thousands of places to refuel (in the US) and thousands of dealers with repair shops, parts, etc. And they had to overcome the notion that an EV was like a golf cart and the batteries needed to be replaced often.
Mike
Oh I’m not belittling the idea of how difficult it was to get over the “EV hump”, it was huge. But once it was accomplished, there weren’t any others vying for the same space, at least at first. (I guess you could count Leaf, but I think that was virtue signaling and GM didn’t really care about it.)
If you do break open a new category, it’s good to be alone for a while. Polaroid. iPhone.. Twitter. Talkies. All of a sudden people in the industry whip around and say “Whoa, that’s a real thing!” By then (hopefully) you have established yourself and have made a brand impression.
It is kind of interesting how short Tesla’s window for monetizing their lead position turned out to be. The Model 3 got up to volume production in the back half of 2017. They then had maybe, what, six years of leading the market after that? By 2024 their sales had started declining, and their once outsized-profit margin had come back down to earth.
EV’s ended up not being an “early winner take most” market. Those visions of 50% CAGR on unit sales and Tesla growing to 20 million cars per year by 2030, which we talked about at length on this board, never materialized. Tesla got ahead of the pack, but the pack largely caught up, keeping their vehicle sales from growing.
At the end of the day cars are commodity items. I’m sure glad Tesla didn’t get stuck as just a car maker. Then the P/E would be under 20.
Google AI:
Tesla officially removed “Motors” from its name in February 2017, changing its corporate title from “Tesla Motors, Inc.” to “Tesla, Inc.”.
Here are the key details regarding this change:
- Expansion Beyond Cars: The name change was intended to reflect the company’s evolution into a broader energy innovation firm, rather than just an electric car manufacturer.
- Impact of SolarCity: The change took place shortly after Tesla acquired SolarCity, a solar energy company, aligning with Elon Musk’s goal to create a vertically integrated sustainable energy company that sells solar panels, energy storage (Powerwall), and cars.
- Strategic Pivot: The move mirrored Apple dropping “Computer” from its name to reflect a wider array of products.
- Domain Change: In July 2016, preceding the official name change, the company had already shortened its web address from teslamotors.com to tesla.com.
The Captain
But won’t the same be true of humanoid robots? I think that’s the point about it being a crowded field in a few years when Tesla finally gets a product to market. It will be a commodity item, and Tesla won’t even have the limited benefit it had with EV’s where it was ahead of the other producers.
Maybe.
I have to say it twice to make the board happy.
Maybe.
The Captain
Then what’s the advantage of shifting from the commodity products of cars and electrical storage to the commodity product of humanoid robots? Won’t Tesla encounter the same issues that would warrant that much lower P/E?
Humanoid robots will be even more commoditized than personal vehicles (and personally I don’t see personal vehicles as a commodity at all, otherwise there would not be over 200 distinct car/truck/SUV models for sale this year).
Anyone ever pay a premium for the visual styling of their Roomba?
Seems like this remains to be seen. Several companies seem to be doing pretty well on ambulation, but thus far I am underwhelmed by progress on manipulation … and, of course, it seems like there is a fair way to go on decision making. Still opportunity for someone to pull way ahead.
While I agree it’s possible that some company might pull ahead, that wasn’t really the point. Tesla had pulled way ahead in BEV’s, but that only lasted for five or six years before the segment became the “commodity” business that captainccs described above.
I can’t see any particular reason why humanoid robots wouldn’t be the same way. Sure, maybe some company jumps to an early start. But after a while, other companies’ products advance, they tear down your product and see what you’ve done, engineers move between companies, etc. You end up with a commoditized product.
Agreed that long run we are really likely to end up with commoditization … just noting that we aren’t there yet and there is room for one vendor to take a big leap ahead for a while.
Certainly possible. But if that’s the case…how possibly to justify a big value premium for humanoid robots? Again, Tesla took a big leap ahead for a while - but probably didn’t get more than $20-30 billion in “extra” earnings because of it, since it only lasted a few years before other BEV makers eroded their margins and eliminated their sales growth.
If one has faith that Elon has done it many times before … you can read that two ways …
There is a tendency to see certain things in light of other astonishingly financially successful new products. Amazon, Facebook, Google, iPhone, Tesla EV, and so on.
So perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t see any network “lock in” the way Apple has managed with the phone - and I don’t see any network effects which allowed Amazon, AOL, Facebook, etc to jump to such an early and sustainable lead. History may teach me something along the way, but it appears to me that “robots” are the next super-duper Roomba (which had a nice lead for about 10-15 years and is now dead) and not the next iPhone
I thought Elon had one with the Tesla and charging network, but both of those have evaporated some; the chargers are no longer exclusive, the cars no longer alone on the sales lot. Still an excellent share of purchases, but moving down at almost every month. By contrast, iPhone and Amazon (to name 2) get bigger and bigger, widening the gulf behind.
I see robots as an (unknown) innovative work, probably with lots of uses to be found, as yet untested, and subject to commodification in the not-very-long run. Hello Chinese competitors, for one.
The two things I see:
Cost benefit: Humanoid robots are (will be?) very cost effective vs. human labor. This is not a Tesla exclusive.
Vertical integration: No supplier other than Tesla has the vertical integration that allows it to produce the most cost effective humanoid robots.
Manipulation: Derived from “manus,” Latin for “hand.” Elon realized early on that the humanoid robot had to be as humanly human as possible.
OK, so it’s three.
The Captain