For quite some time now, Elon Musk has been the face of the technological world. No matter your opinion of him, there's no denying his public status as the man on the forefront of the future.
He's proving this to be true once again with some new announcements made during the grand opening of the new Texas Tesla factory, announcements that could, seriously, change the world.
The factory is in Austin, Texas, and Musk claims it was no simple feat. At the ceremony, he said, "It wasn’t easy building this humongous building and getting all this equipment here."
The building, were it to be stood on its end, would be taller than the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai. Tesla calculations state that the factory could fit 194 billion hamsters.
Not only will production on the strangely-received Cybertruck finally begin, but two new projects are set to start their first stages as well.
These projects are the Tesla Bot, now known as Tesla Optimus, and a sort of robo-taxi.
It's a humanoid robot that Musk is hoping will replace part of the human workforce. Production of the first version of these bots could begin as early as 2023
"It will upend our idea of what the economy is. It will be able to do basically anything humans don’t want to do. It will do it. It’s going to bring an age of abundance," he said.
He assured the crowd, "It may be hard to imagine it, but as you see Optimus develop, and we will make sure it’s safe, no Terminator stuff, it will transform the world to a degree even greater than the cars."
He's explained that Optimus will serve as a general robo-worker in Tesla factories, at least at first, but there's no predicting what else the bot can be capable of doing as it develops.
It will be used solely for taxi services and will be completely self-driven. As Musk put it, "There’s going to be a dedicated robotaxi that is going to look quite futuristic-looking."
A new era of innovation has begun at Tesla it seems, it will be exciting to watch these new projects roll out and push the limits of technological capabilities.
