Tesla Robot Teleoperator Crashes Out In Hilarious Fashion

Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed during the automaker's 2024 Q2 earnings call that the company could sell 20 billion of its yet-to-be-released Optimus robots. However, this clanker can't even hand out bottles of water. An Optimus teleoperator let their bot crash to the floor during Tesla's "Autonomy Visualized" event in Miami last weekend. Ignoring the lack of autonomy involved, Optimus taking a tumble doesn't give me confidence that Tesla will generate unfathomable levels of wealth through robotics.

The clip shared on the Tesla subreddit is damning and impossible not to laugh at. The robot seemingly mimics its teleoperator removing their VR headset, knocking bottles off the table and splashing water all over the place. The off-balance Optimus then tipped backwards and slammed against the floor. The operator should've double checked they were signed out before stepping away for whatever reason. There's something oddly satisfying about hearing the crash just as a clip ends. You just have to watch it on a loop again and again.

Along with Optimus' footing, the robot's development team is also shaky. Ashish Kumar, the project's former head of AI, announced that he was leaving Tesla in September. He's now a research scientist at Meta. Kumar noted that he didn't jump ship for money. It's not a good sign that he didn't give a clear reason for his departure. With expectations set so stratospherically high for Optimus, I can only imagine the pressure Kumar was under to develop the humanoid robot.

Tesla's future is somewhat dependent on its robotics efforts. The automaker's vehicle sales are down 7% globally, with a sharper decline in the European market. In Europe, sales are down 30% despite there being a 26% leap in EV sales industrywide in Europe. The company is going to have to pay Musk's trillion-dollar pay package somehow, and shilling dated models with software updates isn't going to get the job done.