Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus can now squat and pick up an egg

Elon Musk shared a new progress update video on Tesla’s humanoid robot called Optimus. 
It shows the robot doing squats and picking up an egg and says it’s 30% faster than the old model. 
Its X account says it can perform “unsafe” and “boring” tasks, but it’s unclear how it’ll be used. 

Is Tesla’s humanoid robot going to be a personal trainer? 

Its most recent progress update videos make it look like it’s heading in that direction.

Two months ago Tesla showed that Optimus is capable of doing yoga stretches. Now, it’s able to squat and pick up an egg, according to a new video update shared by Elon Musk on Wednesday. 

The latest version of the robot, dubbed “Gen 2,” is 30% faster and 22 pounds lighter than the previous one, the video says. It has new hands and a shiny white exterior.

The prototype for Optimus was first revealed in September 2022 Tesla Optimus

Optimus’ official X account description says it’s capable of performing tasks that are “unsafe, repetitive, or boring.” But Tesla is yet to demonstrate those capabilities in its update videos. 

Musk said at Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholders meeting that he expects the majority of the company’s long-term value to come from Optimus. And the company’s been hiring a bunch of designers to help achieve Musk’s ambitions of selling humanoid robots by 2027. 

Whether he can make that happen within four years is still unclear.

His biographer Walter Isaacson said on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast recently that Musk is “always wrong” about the timeline of achieving his goals.

Isaacson said he was wrong about “how fast self-driving will be, how fast the Cybertruck will be made,” and “how fast we will get to Mars.”

And given Tesla’s humanoid robot competitors — such as Agility Robotics — are already trialing in warehouses, Musk had better quicken his pace.