Tesla jumps as Musk says he expects Optimus sales next year, European and Chinese FSD approval next month
Tesla CEO Elon Musk now says he thinks the company’s Optimus robots will be for sale to the public “by the end of next year.”
According to Musk, “That’s when we are confident that there is very high reliability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is also very high.”
Like many of Musk’s other timelines, that’s later than he previously predicted. In 2024, for example, Musk said the AI robots would be for sale in 2025.
Speaking with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink on a panel today at the World Economic Forum, Musk said the robots are currently doing “simple tasks” in Tesla factories, but believes “they’ll be doing more complex tasks and be deployed in an industrial environment” by the end of this year, before going on sale to the public in 2027.
Musk forecasts a future with “billions” of AI robots that “saturate all human needs.”
On a separate topic, Musk was bullish on regulatory approval for what Tesla calls Full Self-Driving technology in markets outside the US. “We hope to get supervised Full Self-Driving approval in Europe, hopefully next month, and then maybe a similar timing for China,” he said. Musk has said in the past that the pending regulatory approval for FSD in Europe is a key reason why Tesla’s sales in the region have been tanking.
