Next for Musk? Making humanoid robots a reality

Tesla Inc. is floating ambitious plans to deploy thousands of humanoid robots within its factories, expanding eventually to millions around the world.

Longer term, CEO Elon Musk said at a TED Talk, robots could be used in homes, making dinner, mowing the lawn and caring for elderly people, and even becoming a "buddy" or a "catgirl" sex partner.

The robot business eventually may be worth more than Tesla's automotive revenue, according to Musk, who is now touting a vision for the company that goes well beyond making self-driving electric vehicles.

At Tesla's "AI Day" Friday, Sept. 30, Musk plans to unveil a prototype from its project Optimus, an allusion to the leader of the Autobots in the Transformers series. Production could start next year, he said. At the company's 2021 event, Musk showed a Tesla Bot prototype that was actually a person wearing a spandex bodysuit.

Tesla already employs hundreds of robots designed for specific jobs for production of its cars. Humanoid robots have been in development for decades by Honda Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co.'s Boston Dynamics unit. As with self-driving cars, the robots have trouble with unpredictable situations.

To succeed, Tesla will need to show robots doing multiple, unscripted actions, said Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University. "If he just gets the robot to walk around, or he gets the robots to dance," she told Reuters, "that's already been done. That's not that impressive."