New video of Optimus prototype of Tesla Bot shows improved walking speed

Milan Kovac, an engineer in the team at electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla that's working on the Optimus prototype for the Tesla Bot, shared an update on the robot's progress.

This is our fastest gait ever at ~0.6 m/s, > 30% speed boost since our last video in December.

We’ve improved our vestibular system, our foot trajectory, and our ground contact logic. We’ve upgraded our motion planner, and made cuts to the loop latency across the bot. Optimus… https://t.co/CXwkjujD6S

— Milan Kovac (@_milankovac_) February 24, 2024

In January, Optimus was shown to be able to fold clothes.

Increasingly complex tasks through teleoperation, to:

- verify that our current hardware has the dexterity to do those tasks: now mostly SW/AI work
- collect the data needed to train e2e neural nets to do it autonomously (just like with the colored blocks sorting/un-sorting… https://t.co/Z8v4kaB5iF

— Milan Kovac (@_milankovac_) January 15, 2024

Earlier on, Optimus demonstrated it could dance (kind of) and poach an egg (also kind of).

The Tesla Bot is an ambitious project by Elon Musk's company, under development since 2021. It is a general purpose humanoid robot that is now in its second generation with multiple improvements to hand dexterity and movement ability.

Although far from complete, the Tesla Bot is said to be 173 centimetres in height and weigh 57 kilograms, with a carrying capacity of 20 kg. 

Tesla Bot will integrate with artificial intelligence, including large language models.

When the Tesla Bot will reach mass production remains unclear, along with the company meeting its target retail price of US$20,000 per robot.