By Larry Romanoff
Contents
Frauds, Fantasies, and Flaws
First, the Musk/Optimus Frauds
Second, the Musk/Optimus Fantasies
Third, the Musk/Optimus Flaws
The Unadmitted (Total) Failure of Optimus
Supply Chain Challenges
The Espionage Factor
Elon Musk’s Sexbot
Conclusion
First, the Musk/Optimus Frauds
Elon Musk has a long pattern of questionable media releases. There are many documented instances where he has promoted things or ideas that were later questioned for validity. Musk has often posted videos of Optimus, where its actions were presented as autonomous but were later “clarified” to have been performed in a staged setting and were remotely operated. Many were also revealed to have been heavily edited. This pattern suggests a need for caution with any content originating from Musk or Tesla sources. It’s a shame to have to say this, but with anything involving Elon Musk or his activities, it is always necessary to check the source and corroborate whatever is stated or claimed. Especially with items on social media, whenever you encounter anything surprising or admirable, it’s crucial to check the origin, to ask who published it. If the video was created and/or published by either Elon Musk or Tesla, the results should be considered as almost certainly fake, and not credible.
It is often only through courtroom testimony in the many lawsuits against Tesla, that the truth emerges about Musk’s fraudulent statements and videos. One example is a suit filed by an ex-Apple engineer against Tesla in 2018, regarding Tesla’s FSD. Ashok Elluswamy, the director of Tesla’s autonomous driving software, testified in court that a video produced to demonstrate the efficiency and reliability of Tesla’s FSD, was entirely false and fabricated. [1] He said it was not intended to demonstrate functions that the system possessed, only to describe what might be possible one day. But his claim itself was outrageously false.
According to a report by Reuters on January 17, 2025, Elluswami said Elon Musk ordered Tesla’s autonomous driving team to design and record a “system capability demonstration”. “To produce this video, 3D maps were used on the predetermined route from a house in Menlo Park, California to Tesla’s then headquarters. During the trial run, the drivers took over the control. When attempting to show that the Model X could park itself without a driver, the test vehicle crashed into the fence of Tesla’s parking lot.” When Tesla released this video, Musk said on Twitter, “Tesla drove itself (with no human intervention) through city streets to the highway, then to the streets again, and finally found a parking spot.” In the video, there is a sentence: “The person sitting in the driver’s seat was there only for legal reasons. He did nothing. The car was driving by itself.” The video is still available on the Tesla website and has been promoted by Elon Musk as evidence of the reliability of the “Tesla Autopilot”. The contents are entirely false.
This pattern is universal with Elon Musk and is important for the context of this article on Optimus. Nearly all of Musk’s claims about the current or future capabilities of Optimus are fabricated, with no possibility of fruition, claims that are not only provably false, but ridiculous, and even outrageous. Among the literally dozens of false claims Musk has made, the many Optimus robots walking around at his Cybercab event were later discovered to have been remote controlled. And that means the only thing Musk had actually accomplished was making a robot that didn’t fall over while walking. [2]
This pattern of constant misrepresentation has led to broader criticism from industry experts, who view Musk’s vision for Optimus as disconnected from the immense technical challenges of robotics. Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of iRobot (creator of the Roomba) and an MIT professor emeritus of robotics, labeled Musk’s entire Optimus project “pure fantasy thinking”. [3] And indeed Elon Musk has a long history of foolish overpromising, making ambitious technological promises with deadlines that are repeatedly missed. Musk’s long list of tech failures includes promising that “full self-driving” Tesla vehicles were only “one year away” every year since 2014, as thousands of Teslas were crashing while on Autopilot.
On November 5, 2025, China handed the world another bombshell with the unveiling of X-Peng’s IRON humanoid robot. [4] [5] A video of the demonstration showed IRON walking with a relaxed and smooth, human-like rhythm. The “female” robot’s fluid, smooth, and human-like “catwalk” was so convincing that it sparked widespread discussion and skepticism, with many people both inside and outside of China convinced it was a human in a robot suit. [6] The suspicion was so widespread that the company publicly cut open the robot’s leg to prove it was not a human in a suit. [7] [8]
The world had good reason to be skeptical at IRON’s catwalk, given the misleading stunts Elon Musk has perpetrated in his public demonstrations of Optimus. During Tesla’s AI Day in August 2021, Musk introduced the Optimus-to-be as the prototype of the humanoid robot he was creating. However, the “prototype” was not a functional robot, but a human performer, a dancer dressed in a white and black spandex bodysuit who came on stage and performed a simple dance. [9] That fraud attracted widespread criticism, in spite of Musk’s attempts at justification for misleading everyone. The Verge described the event as a “joke” and a “stunt”. [10] A UK robotics professor, Carl Berry, called it “horse shit”. The presentation was widely seen as a publicity move to generate headlines and divert attention from other negative news about Tesla at the time.
The skepticism from 2021 extended to Tesla’s later demonstrations of Optimus. At the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, Optimus robots were shown performing complex tasks like serving drinks and conversing with people. However, reports quickly emerged that Tesla employees were operating remote control units, and the robots were not operating on their own AI. [11] [12] Bloomberg News reported that the robots were actually remotely controlled by humans, information that was later confirmed by a video circulating on Twitter (X). [13] The fact that the machines were revealed to be remotely controlled even as they served drinks and danced, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in anything Musk says. Not only this, but the videos of Optimus that are so often posted on Twitter (X) and YouTube, are either AI-generated, or heavily edited to delete the portions where Optimus displays all its malfunctions. Many observers have pointed out that Tesla’s promotional videos of Optimus usually consist of very short, heavily-edited clips that contain only positive segments. The lack of continuous, unbroken footage of a complete task indicates the robot is not performing as well as the videos imply. None are reliable indicators of anything.
Musk once posted a video of an Optimus robot folding a shirt, much later admitting Optimus was not autonomous in that video. It was just another staged video, like the 2016 FSD video. One observer wrote, “FSD was being massively overhyped via staged videos for years, and Tesla is doing the same with Optimus.” Another wrote, “Elon is doing the same thing with Optimus that he did with FSD – put out staged videos to hype something that likely won’t be real for many years to come.” [14]
Many robotics experts have noted that Musk’s robot demonstrations are “always the best fabrication (misrepresentation) they can show you”. They claim that when Optimus is displayed as performing kung fu or appearing to do something smart, “it’s just reacting to the environment with no cognition behind it.” [15] In other words, there is action programming, but no “AI” in any useful sense, and the robot is not “thinking” about what it is doing. A gasoline-powered auto engine does not “think” about its power strokes; it is merely a senseless machine operating as it was built to operate. Musk’s Optimus is essentially the same; an AI robot without the AI.
In one particular case, reporters were invited to “meet” Optimus at the factory, with one reporter recording the experience. As a demonstration of “Optimus the Tour Guide”, reporters were specifically instructed to ask the robot to conduct them to a particular room. In repeated attempts, Optimus was asked if it knew the location of the room in question. Optimus then had a creepy delay of five or six seconds after which it answered in the affirmative. Then, the reporter asked, “Will you take me there?” Another silent pause of five or six seconds before Optimus replied, “Of course”. But then the robot simply stood in place, making no move to guide the reporter anywhere. This sequence was repeated several times with the same result. At that point, Elon Musk inserted his face into the video and said that Optimus was shy about going to “other spaces”. But that had nothing to do with being shy nor with other spaces. It was simply incompetent programming. Again, an AI robot without the AI.
Image source: Daily Musk
Another Musk/Optimus fraud was the widely-promoted video of Optimus handing out bottles of water at an event. [16] It is almost painful to watch. The robot was slow, hesitant, and clumsy. It appeared only barely able to function in an environment where it had not been pre-programmed. Still, Musk had this video widely circulated as evidence of Optimus’ ability to interact autonomously in social situations. But there were many other videos of the same event that weren’t circulated. [17] In these, Optimus knocked over all the water bottles and then collapsed on the floor. In these videos, the robot appears suddenly confused and frustrated before collapsing. Elon Musk’s quick and “official” explanation was that Optimus suffered from “work overload”.
However, observers at the scene revealed that Optimus was not acting autonomously but was being controlled by an operator. They pointed out that Optimus’ last act after knocking over the water bottles and falling to the floor, was the exact motion of a teleoperator removing his headset. [18] The observers confirmed that an Indian engineer was controlling Optimus in the distribution of the water bottles, became frustrated, knocked over the bottles, removed his headset, and quit. Optimus duplicated these final acts but then could not function without the external control, and thus lost control of its limbs and collapsed. Musk had insisted previously that Optimus was not being remotely controlled, but this was just one more fraudulent exhibition of so many, of Optimus’ “abilities”.
Second, the Musk/Optimus Fantasies
Many of Musk’s claims about the current or future capabilities of Optimus are fabricated, with no possibility of fruition, claims that are not only provably false, but ridiculous, and even outrageous. There will never be “billions” of Optimus robots with “one in every home”. These are all childish fantasies.
Musk boasts that Optimus will be a “massive hit” with consumers, calling Optimus “potentially the biggest product ever in the history of the world”. At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting on November 7, 2025, Musk said that the humanoid robot Optimus will be “the largest product in history, with an expected market size of billions of units”, and that Optimus could one day account for about 80% of Tesla’s stock market value. [19] In late 2025, Musk said “There is a market for about 20 billion robots in the world”, and that his robots would earn “$30 trillion in annual revenue”. [20] Musk said in 2025 “We expect to scale Optimus up faster than any product, I think, in history, to get to millions of units per year as soon as possible”. [21] All of these “predictions” are so implausible as to deserve only public ridicule.
As late as the middle of 2025, Musk was calling Optimus a “killer product” that would add $25 trillion in value to Tesla’s stock – more than all 10 of the world’s most valuable companies combined. “This is going to be bigger than the car.” According to Musk, Optimus would revolutionise human behavior, and everyone in the world would own at least one of them. According to Fortune Magazine, Optimus wasn’t just a potential revenue stream; it was the future of Tesla. [22]
Moving Targets
According to Musk’s plan, Tesla will produce 50,000 Optimus units in 2026 and in 2027 Optimus will fly to Mars on SpaceX’s Starship.
Musk claims that in 2026 he will build a robot production line capable of producing 1 million Optimus robots per year, with medium-term production at 10 million units, and long-term production at 50 million to 100 million units annually. [23] The fairytale fantasy of these claims should be obvious. Musk also claims that Optimus will be 5 times more productive than humans when deployed, but this is nonsense. Tesla has admitted internally that Optimus is less than half as efficient as a human in any tasks so far assigned to it.
According to Musk’s plan, Tesla will produce 50,000 Optimus units in 2026 and in 2027 Optimus will fly to Mars on SpaceX’s Starship. Further, that by 2029, the annual production of Optimus will exceed 500,000 units. This is already a scaled-down version, as Musk was originally predicting an annual production capacity of Optimus to 1 million units by 2027. This may not be a serious business plan. [24]
Readers may have learned of the severe and continuing problems with Musk’s Optimus up to late 2025, including the fact that production was terminated altogether due to multiple failings. Yet Musk ignores all this and inexplicably claims that within a few months he will build a factory to produce one million a year. One million of what? Optimus appears to be a very long way from a final finished product that actually functions as advertised, and is in no condition to be put into production. All these claims are pure groundless fantasy, marketing hype meant to boost Tesla’s stock price, but totally disconnected from reality. It is difficult to separate the reality of the flawed Optimus today, from Musk’s assurance that he is building a factory with the capacity to produce one million Optimus robots each year. And that this factory will supposedly begin operation in Q1 of 2026 (3 months from the time of writing).
There is definitely a surreal disconnect between Elon Musk’s future promises and present-day engineering reality. Musk is announcing he will have a “mass-production-ready” Optimus in January, 2026 and a factory with a capacity of one million units annually, while the company simultaneously ceased all Optimus component procurement, terminated all Optimus production, and ceased the assembly of the few completed robots. To jump from a full production halt to mass production in a matter of months would be an unprecedented engineering feat. But even this is assuming there is a viable product to be produced, and the only existing “inventory” is a warehouse of partially-assembled torsos with defective (and handless) parts.
Perhaps the most surreal of Elon Musk’s “predictions” is not that he will begin production of the Optimus V3 version in 2026, but that it will be entirely “humanoid” and will “look like a person wearing a robot costume”. This would require, at a minimum, not only solving all the design and engineering problems, but executing a total redesign of Optimus, scrapping the current version and creating a duplicate of Chinese X-Peng’s IRON. To accomplish all this in a matter of only a few months, does not seem too plausible, especially considering X-Peng worked for 7 years to perfect IRON.
In a subsequent earnings call, Elon Musk said, “Tesla and our future strategy are at a critical turning point as we bring artificial intelligence into the real world.” I think it’s important to emphasize that Tesla is really a leader in real-world AI, and no one can do what we can in real-world AI.” [25] But this is complete nonsense. Most, and probably all, other AI firms like Google, Open AI, and DeepSeek are far ahead of Elon Musk’s Grok. I would add here that Elon Musk in several recent promoted videos, claims that Tesla is the “world leader” in “useful, general AI”. But that is far from true. Nothing that Elon Musk has touched is a “world leader” in AI. Nothing. It is astonishing that this ridiculous self-praise continues to earn headlines while much of the reality of the AI world is simply ignored.
During Tesla’s Q3 2025 earnings call, Musk made several additional specific claims: (1) He promised to show a “mass-production-ready prototype” of Optimus V3 in Q1 2026. He described it as looking “almost like a person in a robot suit” with “unprecedented realism”. He claimed further (2) that Tesla plans to start a “million-unit” production line by the end of 2025, with mass production beginning in Q1, 2026. He stated also that his goal is to achieve the scale of millions of units, as producing only hundreds would be “meaningless”. To add “the icing to the cake”, Musk clamed (3) that an uncrewed Starship mission to Mars would launch as soon as 2026, with Optimus robots on board to test landing and operations.
It is impossible to reconcile the contradictions between Elon Musk’s fantastic claims and real-world reality. The reality is that Optimus production was terminated entirely in late 2025 because of its severe engineering flaws, nearly-useless battery life, and poor functionality. Further, Tesla has appeared to have given up hopes of improved designs internally and has been pushing its suppliers to create new engineering models that will work. In addition is Musk’s claim that he is scrapping entirely the existing Optimus and will design a truly “humanoid” robot by the end of 2025 and begin producing it at the beginning of 2026.
To add to this is the fact that Musk’s “Starship” is far from a functioning reality. The basic design is still unproven, as are the refueling, life support, and most other aspects. At this point, at the end of 2025, Musk’s Mars Starship is a fairy-tale. The same would have to be said about the V3 “humanoid” robot. X-Peng took 7 years to perfect IRON; Musk apparently believes he can do the same in 3 months and – within that same three months – build a factory that will be mass-producing “millions”. There is nothing in this combined picture that makes any sense. This is true also for Musk’s “Robotaxi”, his “full self-driving FSD” that has been only one year away from “super-human” perfection every year since 2014. Musk’s Hyperloop, his Boring Company, Neuralink and others are in similar condition.
I would add here that in late 2025 Elon Musk claimed that the “humanoid” Optimus V3 would now have solid-state batteries, the same as X-Peng’s IRON. But switching to solid-state batteries is not a simple plug-and-play upgrade. A battery is a core, space-constrained component in a robot’s torso. Adopting a new battery technology with different physical properties, safety requirements, and thermal management would necessitate a significant mechanical and electrical redesign. If this claim of new battery power is true, it would confirm that the current Optimus V2.5, the “magical Musk robot that can do almost anything”, is in fact being scrapped in entirety to be replaced by a new “humanoid” model with a new power source. In fact, the adoption of solid-state batteries for Optimus would virtually demand that the current model be scrapped and totally redesigned. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is that X-Peng took 7 years to bring IRON to the point where it appeared totally humanoid. There is no reason to believe Elon Musk can shorten this development period to only a few months, especially given the multiple issues with so many other aspects of the robot’s functioning.
Termination of Production
The original goal of producing 5,000 to 10,000 Optimus humanoid robots in 2025 completely failed. [26] The robot’s quality and performance fell far short of expectations, with the 2025 production plan increasingly lowered until production was halted altogether. According to internal sources, Tesla completed the assembly of only 200 or 300 units at the Fremont plant. Prior to this, Musk claimed that he would produce 100,000 Optimus units in 2026, with production capacity exceeding one million units in 2027. The main issue lies in the development of the robot’s hand and lower arm components, leading to incomplete units sitting idle in factories. [27]
At the end of July, 2025, Tesla suspended all robot production, due to unsolved technical difficulties and senior staff departures. [27] Tesla has encountered bottlenecks in core technical problems such as overheating of the joint motor, insufficient life of the transmission mechanism, and poor battery life. In particular, the robot’s hand and the research and development of forearm parts have become fatal shortcomings. The result is that nearly all the examples produced, are unassembled piles of hardware sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
Executive departures
Tesla AI VP Milan Kovac Resigns After 9 Years Leading FSD and Optimus Projects
After the high-level turmoil in the middle of 2025, only two members remained of Tesla’s core management – Zhu Xiaotong, and Elon Musk. And no new senior executives had been appointed by the end of 2025. [28] VP Milan Kovac‘s departure was a loss perhaps greater than the recent loss of Andrej Karpathy, Tesla’s former director of artificial intelligence. This marked another high-profile executive exit from Elon Musk’s electric vehicle and robotics empire. Executive departures aren’t unusual at Tesla—former leaders including J.B. Straubel, Jerome Guillen, and Doug Field have all moved on. [29] [30]
Tesla doesn’t reveal staff numbers at its Optimus project, but it is clear from recruiting reports that this project has been bleeding staff for some time, and the trend seems to be accelerating. Sunday Robotics is one such firm that seems to have poached around 50 Optimus and AI staff, [31] and there are many others. Electrek reported that Tesla’s Optimus project was in shambles after Milan Kovac, the head of the Optimus program, resigned in June, 2025, just months after being promoted to senior vice-president by Musk. [32] Latest North American Update (June 20, 2025): “Tesla’s Optimus robotics division will initiate layoffs affecting one-third of its workforce starting in July, led by the newly appointed head. The company will halt all robot component procurement for the remainder of the year.” [33]
Third, the Musk/Optimus Flaws
The technical problems with Optimus are well-documented across multiple credible sources. The hand design is the primary issue, plus motor overheating, short component lifespan, battery issues, production pauses, and leadership changes. These core issues are not minor but are fundamental to the robot’s basic functionality. Musk’s continued promises about future production create a surreal disconnect between the proclaimed production timelines and its current serious technical challenges.
Dexterous hands have always been one of the severe core difficulties of Tesla robots. According to all reports, the Optimus’ hands have a lifespan of no more than two months. Moreover, wear is quickly accelerated on the flexible electronic skin covering the fingers and palms whenever Optimus touches things, and the tendon cords that drive the fingers are prone to aging and breaking. Musk admits that the Optimus’ hands and forearms are a difficult engineering challenge, but claims the next iteration (V3) will definitely be a masterpiece. This claim is also a fairytale. Musk’s team cannot design or produce many of the functionally-acceptable components they need, and Musk is pushing this responsibility onto Tesla’s suppliers. He is not only asking them to make components for Optimus, but to do the basic engineering and to produce the designs for parts that will function well and not break. It seems Tesla hasn’t the engineering ability to make progress on its own, not for design, nor for manufacture. Musk doesn’t admit this publicly and the media avoid discussion of it, but it’s there and it’s documented.
The critical hand and forearm failures are perhaps the most significant obstacle. The “dexterous hands” lack human-like flexibility, cannot perform fine manipulations, and are prone to functional issues. Optimus hands specifically have unwelcome limitations in tactile sensing, in stable grasping of objects, and a uselessly-short 6-week lifespan. Many studies and articles have provided a detailed technical analysis of why Optimus hand design is fundamentally flawed, of the motor placement issues, problems in transmission accuracy, and sensory feedback limitations. This was primarily what led to a cessation of production and a warehouse of unfinished robot “bodies” without hands.
But it isn’t merely a matter of someone designing a new hand for Optimus. We still have the joints breaking, motors burning out, delicate parts wearing out, insufficient battery life, and the half-squat locomotion. And there certainly are serious problems with the “eyes only” and “camera only” sensory perception. I will deal with the sensory perception problems in more detail below. The new head of Optimus has told his staff this next year will be the most difficult of their entire careers, all due to the eyes-only transition. None of this bodes well for immediate mass production. And there is a further problem. For robots to function in society, outside a factory setting, sensory perception is crucial. In addition to vision, the robots desperately need a delicate sense of touch, almost certainly hearing, probably smell. Optimus will have none of these, and even the vision may be problematic.
Beyond the hands, Optimus faces a multitude of hardware defects and other problems, including joint motors that overheat, short component lifespan in transmission units, and limited battery endurance. Then we have the turmoil in leadership, where the project’s leader, Milan Kovac, departed in mid-2025, along with several other high-profile executives and team leaders.
Reports from late 2025 indicate that Tesla is actively testing at least three different technical schemes for Optimus’ hands, and is seeking new suppliers that can design and manufacture more reliable parts. We can conclude from this that the Optimus design is not finalised and that Tesla is relying on the supply chain not just for manufacturing, but for engineering and design solutions to core technical problems. The available information strongly suggests that the entire Optimus project is mired in significant, unsolved hardware challenges that make the stated goal of mass production in early 2026 highly improbable and likely impossible. The narrative of rapid progress appears to be running squarely into the immutable laws of physics and engineering.
July 2025 reports show that Tesla had to pause production specifically because of these hardware defects:
– Joints & Motors: Joint motors prone to overheating, and transmission parts with a very short service life.
– Battery Life: a runtime of only 2 hours or less; This limited endurance is a recognised hardware defect.
– Hand Reliability: The “dexterous hands” have low load capacity and a short operational lifespan. One report specified a lifespan of only six weeks during training tasks, with a cost of over $6,000 per hand.
– Critical Lack of Fine Touch: Fingertip sensors capture only basic pressure data, lacking perception of texture and temperature, making fine manipulation like stably grasping an egg impossible. The absence of sophisticated tactile feedback is a core bottleneck, preventing robots from performing precise tasks and judging the force needed for actions.
– Sensory Perception – Vision-Only Limitations: A vision-dominant approach is prone to failure in low-light or obstructed environments.
The combined influence of hardware reliability issues, a critical deficit in tactile sensing, and the inherent limitations of a vision-only system creates a set of challenges that are foundational, not incremental. Overcoming them will require significant time and fundamental re-engineering, not just iterative improvements. This reality is starkly at odds with the timeline for a factory capable of producing a million units in 2026. There will be no mass production of Optimus in 2026, and it is possible that the combination of these defects could spell the death knell for Optimus. When the world sees the almost-human IRON walking, dancing, riding a bicycle, and available in quantity, the world’s attention might permanently shift from Tesla to IRON and other Chinese humanoid robots. And even if Optimus does go into later production, nobody may be interested.
This confluence of circumstances could indeed be critical for Optimus’ survival. When a product as visually impressive and readily available as IRON enters the market, it can capture the public and commercial imagination. If Optimus is perceived as perpetually delayed, technically flawed, and philosophically rigid, the market may indeed move on. For Optimus to avoid fading into obscurity, Tesla would need to rapidly overcome its profound hardware challenges, achieve a cost-effective and reliable design, and demonstrate that its vision-only approach can outperform multi-sensor systems in real-world, non-factory environments. This is a formidable task, and the timeline for success is uncertain. [34] But realistically, Musk would likely need a decade or more to sort out all the existing problems, complete total redesigns that are production-ready, create a dependable supply chain, and actually build a functioning manufacturing process.
IRON has already demonstrated concrete functionality while Optimus is fundamentally unproven. The shift in Optimus training methods to eyes-only is an admission of prior failures, and highlights the lack of public, verifiable demonstrations from Tesla compared to X-Peng’s transparency. IRON’s catwalk moment represents a real engineering milestone, while Optimus’s “potential” remains just that—potential.
Flaws: Locomotion and Balance
Tesla’s Optimus is fundamentally unstable in locomotion. If it had to walk with its legs fully extended and its feet flat on the floor, it would fall over and come crashing to the ground. It isn’t much more stable when stationary; in internal reports, Tesla staff say that Optimus robots fall half the time when performing tasks that require any bending or tilting, sometimes damaging expensive equipment. Unless performing a task that requires moving more than a few feet, Optimus robots are usually tied to a support frame to stay upright. And that is simply bad engineering design. A robot should be able to easily stay upright; the standing and balancing should have been the first thing Musk addressed. But he didn’t address it. Instead of recognising and admitting a flawed design, Musk decided it was sufficient for Optimus to walk in a perpetual half-squat, like a chimpanzee.
X-Peng’s IRON robot (as one example) walks perfectly like a human, but Musk’s Optimus walks strangely, with its knees always bent, as if in a partial squat or a crouch. The bent-knee “crouched” posture of Optimus is a well-known crutch in robotics and is common in many bipedal robots. This stance dramatically lowers the robot’s center of gravity, which significantly simplifies the challenge of balance and prevents falls. It’s a shortcut that prioritises not falling down during demonstrations, over achieving a truly human-like, efficient, and dynamic gait. This is not a prize-worthy trade-off; it’s an admission that the current design cannot achieve stable, upright locomotion. A stable, upright bipedal walk requires a high center of gravity to allow for dynamic balance and a natural gait cycle. However, this is incredibly difficult to control. The unusual posture and appearance of Optimus are the result of deliberate engineering trade-offs to produce a semblance of stability.
I have written an essay comparing Elon Musk’s Optimus with X-Peng’s IRON. It contains much comparative information that readers may find useful: The Beauty and the Beast — IRON and Optimus: A Tale of Two Robots [35]
Humans walk like an inverted pendulum, with straight legs for most of the stride, which is highly energy-efficient. IRON’s “catwalk” demonstrates this principle. In contrast, a constant crouch gait, as seen with Optimus, is less efficient, consumes more power, looks unnatural, and the joints are perpetually under load. The squat posture in locomotion is a flaw, not a feature, a fundamental compensation for a design that cannot achieve stable, upright motion, a solution for a robot that would otherwise topple. It was the only way to prevent Optimus from falling on its face whenever it tried to walk. The bent-knee posture in locomotion is a compensation for stability issues, not some brilliant design innovation. That doesn’t deserve a prize.
The locomotion and general appearance of IRON and Optimus in motion reflect fundamental differences in their design philosophies and engineering choices. With Optimus, Musk made deliberate engineering trade-offs where he sacrificed refinement for basic stability while in motion. That sounds like poor planning and an impoverished design philosophy, which means they had to make Optimus function awkwardly, to prevent it from falling on its face.
Here is a video of Optimus running and moving its fingers. [36] This one was also widely circulated, and presented as a victorious accomplishment, but the running is “bent-knee and slow motion”, and the hand motions are primitive and clumsy. Compare this to IRON’s dancing and somersaults to understand the difference in capability. Here is another video of three different robots (two American and one Chinese) to give you some idea of relative ability. [37] For additional comparison, here is a short video of Optimus and EngineAI’s T800 robot. [38] Compared to Optimus’ limited abilities, the T800 is awesome. Here is a short video comparing the walking sophistication of IRON and Optimus side by side. [39] This last one is a kung fu comparison video. [40]
Flaws: Sensory Perception
The focus on sensory perception touches on what may be the most profound long-term challenge. The industry is increasingly recognising that for a robot to operate effectively in unstructured human environments, vision alone is insufficient. The problem with Optimus’s hands isn’t just mechanical; it’s perceptual. As one analysis notes, a robot’s inability to feel what it touches creates a major bottleneck. Without the ability to perceive texture, temperature, and subtle forces, a robot cannot perform reliable fine motor tasks, a requirement for any application outside a highly controlled factory setting. Current reports focus on the critical shortfall in tactile sensing, but the integration of additional senses like hearing/audio for complex voice commands and situational awareness would indeed be necessary for a true general-purpose robotic companion.
Added to this is the case for multi-sensor fusion. Many in the industry and academia argue that a combination of sensors (LiDAR, radar, cameras) provides more robust perception. The core argument is that LiDAR can directly and accurately measure distance in 3D without being affected by lighting conditions to the same degree as cameras. Proponents believe a fused-sensor system is inherently safer and more reliable. Tesla’s stance is that a pure vision system, backed by powerful AI and a massive data engine (both imaginary, so far), is sufficient and avoids the complexities and costs of sensor fusion. However, this approach inherits the inherent weaknesses of biological eyes, such as susceptibility to strong light, low light, and adverse weather like heavy rain and fog. While Tesla’s algorithms have improved, these remain fundamental challenges that other companies seek to overcome with additional sensors.
I assume readers are familiar with Tesla’s many tribulations over its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software. Elon Musk claims that “humans use eyes and brains to drive”, so camera vision is all that is necessary for autos. Musk continues to promote this as fully-autonomous and far superior to human control, while 1,000 accidents and nearly 100 deaths suggest otherwise. The main issue is that Elon Musk made a decision years ago to forego quality and security in the design of FSD, in favor of low cost coupled with engineering incompetence. And that meant foregoing most of the advanced sensors available like radar and LIDAR, and to proceed with a camera-only version of autonomous driving software. To say this was a bad decision would be quite an understatement. This is important for our purpose here, because this stubborn flawed reasoning has been transferred From Tesla to Optimus, almost certainly to experience the same unpleasant results.
Ashok Elluswamy was the leader of Tesla’s autonomous driving team (the ill-fated FSD), then moved to Optimus, where he immediately pushed the team to shift its R&D focus to camera-centric perception and learning solutions, the identical technical path he used for the training methodology of Tesla’s FSD software. [41] This may prove to be a critical failing of Optimus, because forward-looking “eyes-only” sensors will never be sufficient for a robot wanting to be “humanoid”. This was not just a technical choice but a deeply held ideological philosophy, [42] and Musk will not likely back down from his stubborn position.
The core of the debate lies in the observation that a robot functioning in dynamic human spaces needs more than simple vision. The prevailing expert opinion suggests that for a robot to be truly capable and safe in unstructured environments like homes or hospitals, it would need to integrate a suite of sensors. Relying solely on cameras could be the Optimus project’s biggest strategic risk, as it ignores other sensory dimensions critical to physical interaction and nuanced understanding. But Musk has closed this door and is committing Optimus to the same flawed sensory perception as with the Tesla autos. I have difficulty seeing how this can come to a good end.
Until now, Tesla was using motion pictures to “train” Optimus to do things. But Tesla has abandoned the motion capture and shifted Optimus training from motion capture to a data collection method that relies solely on cameras. [43] This involves having employees perform tasks while being recorded to generate vast amounts of training videos. Dozens of Tesla employees spend their shifts repeatedly performing everyday actions like lifting cups, wiping tables, and pulling curtains. The aim is to use this “pure visual” data to teach the robot’s AI model how humans move.
The eyes only, camera-only approach is more difficult than it appears. [44] Until 2025, Tesla was using motion pictures to “train” Optimus to do things, but now Optimus is being trained by watching videos taken by Tesla staff. More than 100 Tesla employees spend their shifts repeatedly performing everyday actions like lifting cups, wiping tables, and pulling curtains. [45] The idea seems to be that if Optimus can see videos of every possible thing or action, it may know how to behave in that situation. But it is widely recognised that camera only is not an ideal solution. Musk claims having cameras and LIDAR is unsafe because the car (or the robot) won’t know how to react if the two sensory inputs seem to disagree. [46] But that’s just an excuse to justify a position he’s already taken.
The core issue is that Tesla’s strategy, while plausible in theory, has proven difficult to execute. The system’s documented vulnerabilities in bad weather and with unexpected objects (“AI illusions”) demonstrate that digital “eyes” are not a perfect substitute for human perception and reasoning. Furthermore, it lacks the human capacity for intuition and learning from a lifetime of subtle experiences.
While the scale of this effort is significant, the vision-only path is fraught with difficulties. A major technical hurdle is that video data is often low-quality. More critically, video lacks crucial information a robot needs to interact with the physical world, such as joint angles, tactile sensations, and force feedback. Teaching a robot to apply the correct amount of force to pick up an egg, for instance, is incredibly difficult without touch sensors.
The concern is that this is a dead-end path driven by Musk’s stubbornness rather than technical merit. Many robotics professors and experts in the broader industry recognise the importance of multi-modal sensing, and there are many academic papers on why robots need broad sensing capabilities. Most experts share my skepticism about vision-only approaches, and the entire industry – except for Elon Musk – is moving toward multi-modal sensing. Video lacks crucial information a robot needs to interact with the physical world, such as joint angles, tactile sensations, and force feedback.
Official development standards explicitly call for multi-modal perception for robots. This means integrating various sensors to enable functions like scene understanding and object recognition, moving beyond a single type of sensory input. Furthermore, robotics researchers argue that for safe and effective integration into human environments, robots will need enhanced perception, including auditory systems to understand language and tone, and tactile sensors to better control their interactions. This stands in contrast to Musk’s vision-only paradigm.
However, it will be impossible for Musk to change this architecture now, because Optimus is copying the identical system used for Tesla cars. To alter Optimus’ sensory functions would either invalidate all the training material or require Tesla to scrap their auto’s eyes-only system and adopt LIDAR as most other auto manufacturers have done. Two very expensive choices.
This full commitment to a cameras-only sensory system isn’t just for Optimus’ “eyes”; it extends to how the robot is trained. This means the core AI models for understanding the world are shared between the Tesla car and the robot. This approach is rooted in a long-held belief at Tesla, often stated by Elon Musk, that a vision-only system is sufficient and even superior. The argument against sensors like LIDAR is that when their data conflicts with camera data, it creates confusion and uncertainty for the AI, potentially increasing risk. While the vision-only path offers potential benefits in cost and simplicity, there are several critical challenges.
The camera-only system avoids expensive sensors like LIDAR, and a single type of sensor input avoids the complex “sensor fusion” problem of reconciling conflicting data from different sources. But pure vision systems struggle with object recognition delays in rain, fog, or strong backlight, and may misjudge the distance to low-lying obstacles. The evidence is that this one-sensor strategy could be a “critical failing”. Most everyone claims that cars are “just robots too”, but there is a huge difference between the “intelligence” required by a car to avoid a tree, and a “humanoid” robot baby-sitting the children.
The core issue is that a humanoid robot operates in a fully 3D, dynamic environment where stability, dexterity, and spatial awareness are paramount. The challenges seen in FSD, while serious, primarily occur in the relatively structured environment of a road network. Translating that same sensory philosophy to a bipedal robot navigating cluttered, human-centric spaces is a significantly more complex problem.
The approach of X-Peng and other Chinese robotic companies to the sensor and dexterity problem presents a stark contrast to the vision-only strategy of Elon Musk. They are also aggressively pursuing advanced tactile sensing as a critical, non-negotiable component for achieving true robotic dexterity. The common thread is a belief that a robot must have a rich sense of touch to interact reliably with the physical world. Researchers at Fudan University frame tactile sensing as “the last kilometer” challenge for fine robotic manipulation. They argue that without it, robots will never reliably perform delicate tasks in unstructured environments. When we place this multifaceted, sensor-rich approach next to Tesla’s vision-only strategy, the difference in technical philosophy is profound. Chinese companies are operating on the premise that dexterity requires a constant, high-fidelity stream of tactile data to complement visual perception. They are publicly demonstrating robots that use this data to perform fine motor tasks that remain a significant challenge for most other humanoid robots.
Flaws: Aesthetics
It is also true that the Optimus aesthetics reflect a lack of final-product vision. The design appears to be what happens when the goal is a quick, functional demo rather than a polished, viable product. IRON’s design philosophy is superior. It demonstrates a higher level of ambition and a more mature approach to solving the core problems of humanoid robotics, notably locomotion and human interaction. The comparison doesn’t just show different “choices”; it highlights a significant gap in the sophistication and maturity of the underlying technology and design intent. Based on the evidence of their respective robots’ capabilities, the view that IRON’s designers had far higher standards is a perfectly reasonable conclusion.
Look at the picture below, and answer this question: In what way does this random collection of used auto parts qualify as “humanoid”?
Image Source: Tesla
Optimus’ design was from the aesthetics of necessity, not philosophy. When a design is elegant and functional, its engineering can be a point of pride. However, the exposed, unpleasant joint where the torso meets the legs on Optimus is more indicative of a modular, hastily assembled design focused on proving basic functionality and prioritising speed of development and low cost over refinement. IRON’s synthetic skin and sleek torso, while potentially more expensive and complex, demonstrate a design philosophy that has considered the final product’s integration into a human environment from the start.
The reality of Musk’s Optimus is that his design was badly flawed and his solution was to use a crude, power-inefficient crouch gait to simplify the balance problem – an engineering compromise for stability. It is similar with appearance in aesthetic and form. Optimus is utilitarian and unfinished. It reflects a prototype mindset where basic function is the only goal. And the exposed mechanics signal a work-in-progress, not a “proud display” of its mechanical nature. In designing IRON, X-Peng chose biomimicry for efficiency. They accepted the greater design and control challenges in aiming for a natural, energy-efficient gait. The core software and mechanical design (weight distribution) are advanced enough to produce a more difficult, but ultimately much superior, form of locomotion.
Although admittedly beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I find the physical appearance of Optimus to be unusual and not particularly attractive. This design was partially from inadequate engineering ability, and partly due to cost. As to Optimus’ appearance, the media hype claims “Tesla has opted for a design that proudly displays its mechanical nature. The visible joints and actuators signal a focus on raw functionality and engineering substance over form.” That is just face-saving marketing nonsense. The exposed joints are evidence of Musk prioritising rapid iteration over polished design. I think the truth is closer to “We tried, but couldn’t make a humanoid robot, so we did the best we could with a machine.”
I don’t believe that Optimus is “proudly displaying” its unattractive mechanical construction, so much as it is evidence of impoverished design and a lack of creative engineering talent. I would remind readers that when Elon Musk first introduced his “robot” to the public, it was a female dancer in spandex, and he boasted that he would produce a “humanoid” Tesla robot. The fact that he didn’t, means that he couldn’t. Musk and Tesla abandoned the idea of a humanoid robot and instead produced an industrial machine. This isn’t just philosophical difference but demonstrates different stages of maturity in tackling the core physics problem of bipedal locomotion.
The design philosophy behind X-Peng’s IRON and its 7-year development cycle weren’t just about technical refinement but about mastering the psychological aspects of human-robot interaction. Tesla’s rushed compromises ignored all this. X-Peng’s patience and cultural commitment to quality (7 years in development) contrast sharply with Musk’s “move fast and break things” mentality. The focus on biomimicry isn’t just engineering—it’s a holistic understanding that aesthetics and movement are as critical as functionality for social integration. This isn’t just better engineering; it’s more thoughtful product design. IRON’s design was not just someone’s subjective preference; it was a recognition of a fundamentally more mature and sophisticated engineering and design culture. IRON perfectly encapsulates the philosophy that separates a long-term visionary project from a quick demo.
This long-term, holistic approach is a hallmark of companies that prioritise a polished final product over rapid, hype-generating news cycles. It demonstrates a confidence that comes from a deep-seated belief in the quality of the underlying work, rather than a need for constant external validation through ambitious media announcements. X-Peng’s journey with IRON reflects a company building a platform for the future, while Tesla’s current Optimus prototype feels like a company building a demonstration for the present.
Flaws: AI and Robot Intelligence
A psychologist sounds the alarm over the use of AI as a psychotherapist: “I’ve already been called the most patient listener, the help in difficult times, and even the best psychologist. I don’t mind, but I’m concerned that at least 12% of users have replaced live therapy with conversations with me,” the neural network itself comments on its popularity. Source
I referred earlier to the essay on a comparison between IRON and Optimus. This topic was covered in that article, and may be of special interest to readers. [47]
Optimus is designed to rely on an overall “brain function” that is “one size fits all”. In other words, an AI that knows everything and can do everything, all in one place. IRON’s structure duplicates in a sense what DeepSeek did, which was to create compartments with different knowledge and specialties, and abilities, each performing a specific function. Optimus, following Elon Musk’s conviction, effectively relies on an imperfect AI today but hopefully will one day contain an AGI with “knowledge that spans the universe”. You can form your own conclusion about this. However, for the time being, Optimus cannot function in a truly autonomous fashion; it can do only what it has been programmed to do, and can copy only what it has been “taught” from watching videos.
The differences between IRON and Optimus are not accidental, but stem from fundamentally different philosophies: X-Peng’s IRON pursues biomimicry and sensor redundancy. Its goal is to create a robot that moves, perceives, and interacts as naturally as possible within the complex human world. This is a “top-down” approach that prioritises capability and safety for diverse environments. Tesla Optimus V3 pursues simplistic engineering possibilities and cost scaling. Its goal is to build a robot for repetitive tasks by leveraging Tesla’s strengths in automotive manufacturing and AI vision. This is a “bottom-up” approach that prioritises mass production for controlled environments like factories. [48]
It is worth the effort to understand how these fundamentally different technical philosophies in building a robot’s “brain” translate into distinct robot capabilities. [49] The fundamental philosophical difference is that Tesla aims for efficiency through maximum technology reuse and simplified hardware, while X-Peng pursues sophistication through specialised hardware and layered AI systems. The core difference is that Tesla prioritises applying a single, general-purpose AI system, while X-Peng is building a layered, specialised intelligence for complex physical interactions.
Optimus has a single, large neural network for all perception, planning, and control. IRON uses a specialized, “layered intelligence”, with dedicated models for different cognitive tasks like thinking, understanding, and bridging functions. Optimus shares the same network architecture and training data pipeline with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system (the eyes-only flawed one). IRON has a “three-model synergy”, composed of Vision-Language Model (VLM) for understanding, Vision-Language-Task (VLT) for planning, and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) for direct action generation.
Optimus relies solely on cameras (same as Tesla cars), and tries to leverage its computing algorithms to build a 3D understanding from 2D images. [50] [51] IRON and many other robots depend on multi-sensor fusion that combines cameras, LiDAR, and millimeter-wave radar for a more direct and redundant 3D perception of the environment. [52] Optimus tries to maximise the reuse of auto FSD technology and data. IRON is more concerned with precision and adaptability. It aims for a high-fidelity understanding and interaction with the physical world, enabling complex, unscripted tasks through its specialized “brain” model components.
The practical implications of these different paths are significant and align with the companies’ overall goals. For Tesla (Optimus), the focus is on creating a functional, inexpensive robot for repetitive industrial and domestic tasks. The strength lies in leveraging a massive existing data pipeline (from Tesla cars) and computing infrastructure. The potential weakness is that the system’s performance is intrinsically tied to the limits of its camera-only perception and its general-purpose AI. A main issue here is that Tesla’s FSD was designed and built for automobiles, not for humanoid robots that “will be in every home”.
Flaws: Robot Applications
At an entrance to Berlin’s exhibition hall where thousands of travel industry professionals are gathering for the ITB trade show, humanoid robot ChihiraKanae greets visitors in English, German, Chinese and Japanese. Source
Elon Musk has for years claimed that the main applications for Optimus will be as mundane factory workers and household domestics. This initially sounds intuitively plausible, but the reality is quite different. It is already a foregone conclusion that Optimus will never be acceptable as a domestic servant, and no humanoid robots will be doing much in factories. Today’s humanoid robots aren’t the right fit for factories or homes. [53] The main problem in both cases is the hands. Tests have repeatedly proven that the dexterous but delicate hands of humanoid robots wear out extremely quickly when performing repetitive industrial tasks such as tightening screws. The hands seldom last more than a month in factory test applications, and they are very expensive to replace.
X-Peng’s strategy with IRON is focused on applications that are more feasible with today’s technology. Notably, the company has publicly steered IRON away from the two commonly touted future applications of factory assembly lines and household chores. The reason is that the technology for these tasks is not yet ready for commercial use. This candid assessment of current limitations reinforces their focus on less complex, but more immediately achievable, service roles. From this experience, X-Peng chose a shrewd viable market for IRON, giving priority to commercial service scenarios, such as an office receptionist, tour guide, personal shopping assistant, quality inspector, and other service roles. The value of these tasks lies in IRON’s visual perception, navigation and interaction capabilities brought by its anthropomorphic design. These tasks require little complex, high-intensity “two-handed” operations.
In the home scenario, the biggest challenge is security. The home environment is far more unstructured and unpredictable than the factory, and any mistake can be catastrophic. This is not a place for a robot like Optimus, lacking most of its senses and riddled with multiple shortcomings. A humanoid robot pretending to be a companion or household servant, or a babysitter for your children, needs much more than mere sight to function acceptably. It desperately requires a delicate sense of touch, and very much needs hearing as well. Smell might also be required, while taste is likely optional. Tesla appears more focused on functional industrial applications while X-Peng is targeting commercial scenarios like guides and receptionists where appearance and overall competence are priorities. This is not so important with Optimus which is oriented more toward factory work.
I should point out here that both Tesla and X-Peng have employed their humanoid robots in their factories. X-Peng’s production lines have practiced with hundreds of them, and concluded this was not an appropriate employment. Tesla has had the same experiences, and concluded internally that Optimus was less than half as efficient as a human in any of the factory tasks it attempted. A Tesla staff member said that at present, Optimus only handles batteries in Tesla’s battery workshop, with less than half the handling efficiency of workers, and has not yet engaged in more complex car assembly work. [54] Yet Musk inexplicably continues to push this employment as the expected norm.
The Unadmitted (Total) Failure of Optimus
Optimus couldn’t function acceptably in a factory or in any social situation without external control. It was unable to do anything autonomously.
Elon Musk now says that he will produce a new genuinely “humanoid” robot, a V3. It will be a totally new design, with a new shape, new physique, new human-like appearance, new power source (solid-state batteries), and presumably new hands, joints and other parts that function more acceptably. Musk is presenting this as a “new, improved version”, but the real story is that the existing Optimus is a total failure that is being scrapped entirely. With a totally new design and components, there is likely little to nothing that will be carried from the existing Optimus into the new version. The existing version, the V2 and V2.5, were almost useless. Without the external teleoperating control, Optimus couldn’t even stand up without falling on its face. It is a failure in every respect. It couldn’t function acceptably in a factory or in any social situation without external control. It was unable to do anything autonomously. This is a big story that will be entirely buried by Musk propaganda and media hype, with all attention being paid to the new V3.
But the chances of this new version being a perfectly-functioning humanoid robot, capable of independent action in social situations, and ready for mass production in only a few months, are precisely zero. X-Peng took 7 years to create a truly functional humanoid robot, and there is no possibility that Elon Musk can design and produce a fully-capable humanoid in only a few months. And, if history is any guide, this new version will also have multiple flaws and shortcomings, and would require years for full development. This is especially true since Musk exhibits extreme impatience and wants only to produce another iteration as quickly as possible. “Move fast and break things”. My assessment of this is that Elon Musk’s Optimus, in all its iterations, will be a failure and will die a natural death. Other firms have already far surpassed Musk in his robot creations, and whatever he produces eventually will be flawed and out of date.
I would stress that my assessment aligns with all the available information. The shift from V2 to V3 appears to be a fundamental redesign, driven by the former’s technical failures, with a production timeline that is extraordinarily aggressive. The documented problems with the V2 model go beyond performance shortcomings and point to fundamental hardware and reliability issues, as widely reported in 2025. There were multiple hardware defects. Internal messages revealed a series of hardware problems, including joint motors that overheat when lifting heavy objects, dexterous hands with insufficient load capacity, and battery life of less than 2 hours. Due to these “severe technical challenges” with the hand and forearm design, which could not achieve human-like dexterity, Tesla was forced to terminate all production, leaving a warehouse of unassembled robot bodies (without hands).
Optimus V2 raised serious autonomy and control questions. Public demonstrations repeatedly raised doubts about true autonomy. Musk previously always denied such claims, but they were proven. Musk’s move from Optimus V2 to V3 is in reality a necessary scrapping of an unviable product. Faced with these challenges, Tesla’s strategy shifted from iterating on V2 to a clean-sheet design. In the Q2 2025 earnings call, Elon Musk stated that the version for mass consumer delivery would be a “completely new V3 design”, significantly different from the existing V2 version.
While Musk has not provided a detailed public blueprint, reports about the frozen V3 design claim major leaps: human-level bipedal stability, hands with 22 degrees of freedom, and a 300% increase in endurance to 8 hours using a 4680 battery system. The core implication is that these major leaps in specifications across locomotion, dexterity, and power implies a ground-up redesign, not an iteration. If V2 were viable, such a wholesale change would be unnecessary.
Then we have the “Impossible Timeline”. Skepticism about Musk’s claimed production schedule is well-founded. He has announced plans to start mass production of Optimus V3 in 2026, but this follows a pattern of missed goals. In early 2025, Musk aimed to produce 5,000-10,000 robots, but by July, actual output was only “several hundred” units.
There also exists a major scaling challenge. Going from a few hundred flawed units to mass-producing a completely new, complex machine in roughly a year is an unprecedented manufacturing challenge. It must also achieve a radical cost reduction from an estimated $60,000 per V2 unit to a target of $20,000 for V3. This all suggests that Optimus V3 represents a high-risk, “all-or-nothing” gamble for Tesla and for Elon Musk.
The move to V3 is a tacit admission that the previous platform was not commercially viable, but the new version is a totally unproven execution. The promised capabilities remain on paper. The history of hardware defects, autonomy questions, and missed production targets in all of Musk’s ventures, not only Optimus, provide little confidence that he can solve these profound challenges at breakneck speed. There is also substantial competitive pressure now. Companies like X-Peng have spent years on development. Tesla is attempting to compress this timeline dramatically, into only a few months, which increases the risk of another flawed or delayed product.
In essence, the narrative of a revolutionary V3 is underpinned by the stark failure of V2. While the ambition is clear, the path to a reliable, mass-produced robot by 2026 appears fraught with obstacles that past performance suggests neither Tesla nor Elon Musk have yet overcome.
Supply Chain Challenges
The supply chain challenges for Optimus are severe and systemic.
The evidence clearly shows that Optimus problems are not just about timeline delays. They involve fundamental engineering problems combined with complex supply chain and geopolitical challenges that will be difficult to overcome quickly. Musk’s Optimus project faces significant and interconnected supply chain challenges. These stem from fundamental hardware failures that led to a production halt, severely impacting suppliers and delaying timelines. Broader geopolitical pressures on Tesla’s wider supply base add another layer of complexity.
The problems are not merely about delays but involve deep technical, commercial, and geopolitical factors. There is also what we might term a “cascading effect from technical failures”. The decision to terminate production and attempt a total redesign was driven by critical hardware defects reported to suppliers. These included joint motors prone to overheating, short lifespan of transmission parts, and the insufficient dexterous hand. This created a warehouse of unfinished robot “bodies” and forced Tesla to halt orders, disrupting the entire planned production flow and supplier schedules.
The production termination had a tangible financial impact on Tesla’s partners. Optimus’s problems rippled through a specialized, nascent supply chain. One supplier executive noted the difficult position of having to believe in Musk’s vision early to secure business, only to face sudden halts. Taiwanese firms like Asia Optical, Liancheng Precision, and Heda Industrial, were hit particularly hard.
There are also broader geopolitical pressures on Tesla’s entire ecosystem, including but not limited to Optimus. Tesla’s overall supply chain, which Optimus would rely on, is under severe stress from international trade policies. A detailed April 2025 report indicated that 50% of the parts for Tesla’s North American vehicles come from Chinese companies. With tariffs on some Chinese components exceeding 100%, the cost of US manufacturing has risen sharply. Some suppliers have warned Tesla they may need to cut off supply if tariffs make business untenable. This environment makes establishing a cost-effective, reliable supply chain for a new, complex product like Optimus extraordinarily difficult. To add to the troubles, the Optimus robots require important rare earth parts for critical components and, due to the dual-use nature of Musk’s “robot adventure” (as well as of SpaceX and Starlink), the Chinese government is restricting shipments of these crucial items and materials pending assurance of civilian use only.
The necessary conclusion is that the supply chain challenges for Optimus are severe and systemic. They originate in unsolved engineering problems but are compounded by the high-cost pressure of Tesla’s mass-production goals and the larger geopolitical tensions increasing costs and instability across Tesla’s entire supply network. These factors collectively make the stated goal of rapid, cost-effective mass production by 2026 highly improbable and almost certainly impossible.
The Espionage Factor
It is not irrational to harbor a fear about domestic robots becoming permanent surveillance devices in homes.
There exists a worthwhile question about domestic and commercial office humanoid robots. As an analogy, the Rolls-Royce engines on today’s jet planes are in constant contact with the company via satellite. When the engines are operating, they constantly send all operating information to the Rolls-Royce headquarters, claiming this is for safety. [55] [56] That may be true, but it is also true that Rolls-Royce always know the movements of an airplane from this data transmission. They know where the airplane goes, when it goes, the altitudes, everything. They learn much that is not related to safety. [57]
This analogy will hold true for domestic commercial office robots. They will be able to record everything, with sound and video. They will know everything that happens in a household or corporate office. No documents will be safe from their examination. They will know what we say and to whom we say it. They will know who comes and goes in every house and office. They will have the capacity to record every small item of our daily lives, and the ability to transmit this information to a central source.
This is not fantasy. Apple’s Siri has already done something similar. Apple has recently been sued because they surreptitiously turned on Siri to record conversations on all iphones and send that information to Apple. One recent media report says: “Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads.” Apple claimed this was “unintentional”, but it clearly wasn’t unintentional. [58] It would be inexplicable magic indeed if Apple (1) “accidentally” turned on Siri on all phones, (2) “accidentally” instructed Siri to record and transmit to Apple headquarters all conversations, (3) “accidentally” collected and collated all that information, (4) “accidentally” sold that information to advertisers, and (5) “accidentally” deposited all that revenue in a bank account. I suspect Google is doing the same with their Android phones. In fact, Google is so justifiably mistrusted that the Israeli IDF banned all phones using Google’s Android O/S. [59]
It is well-known and thoroughly documented that the American auto manufacturers have inserted chips into their cars that are accessible to remote control, where the authorities could shut down all the cars in a certain area, for example to prevent large public demonstrations or revolts. [60] [61] [62] [63] When discovered, some of these were claimed to be “accidental flaws” in the auto chips. This would be the same as Apple’s Siri recording all your personal conversations as being “accidental flaws”. And we can conclude that if General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are inserting these remote-control chips into their cars, Tesla is doing the same. [64] In fact, we have direct evidence that Tesla was already doing precisely this nearly a decade ago. It was presented as – and masquerading as – a system that was a way for “owners” to remotely control their cars. Unfortunately, it isn’t only the owners who have access to this technology. And, if it’s in the Tesla cars, we can be sure it’s also in the Optimus robots because they all share the same AI.
If we eventually have domestic and commercial robots, they will function as permanent observation posts, with all information potentially sent somewhere. This will not happen in China, but it will almost certainly happen with the Western-made robots, and that means Elon Musk’s Optimus. We could be heading for a Western society that is totally monitored by the CIA or NSA or similar agency. Our lives could be an open book.
There is clearly a serious concern about the privacy implications of domestic robots, connecting this to well-documented surveillance issues with existing technologies like smartphones. It is not irrational to harbor a fear about domestic robots becoming permanent surveillance devices in homes. This concern is quite legitimate and raises profound privacy questions that need to be addressed. And we can similarly conclude that if Tesla is installing these remote-control functions in their autos, they would also install them in their robots.
China has already addressed these issues, while the US and the Western and European nations have not. China’s new GB/T 45502-2025 standard for service robot information security, which directly addresses the user’s concerns about data protection for domestic robots. These are recent official standards with high authority. [65] [66] [67] But there is at the present a huge gap in western robotics regulations. Currently, there is no directly equivalent, widely mandated privacy and security standard for consumer robots in Western markets like the US or EU, as exists in China. Western regulation always tends to lag behind technology. While general data protection laws (like GDPR in Europe) apply, they are not specifically designed for the unique, always-on, sensor-rich nature of domestic robots.
These concerns are not only serious but highly prescient. They correctly identify that domestic robots represent a dramatic escalation of existing surveillance issues, turning private homes and corporate offices into potential data collection nodes. The assessment that this creates profound privacy risks is well-founded. The technical capabilities described are easily feasible.
Consider how a domestic/office robot’s inherent functions could translate into surveillance risks, validating these concerns. Domestic and commercial robots are easily capable of continuous video/audio recording. Their persistent presence in living and office spaces allows recording of activities, conversations, private documents, and guests. Tesla’s Optimus is trained via video feeds recorded by employees in homes/offices, demonstrating the central role of vision data.
Keep in mind also that these robots will require sophisticated mapping and spatial awareness. To navigate a home or office, a robot must create a detailed 3D map of the layout, the contents of all rooms, and of the daily routines. Think of smart vacuum cleaners, but with far greater detail and context from advanced sensors.
Consider the network connectivity issue. The robots will need a constant connection to the internet for updates, and unsupervised cloud AI processing creates a perfect channel for data exfiltration. This is the core mechanism, analogous to the smartphone voice assistant issues cited above, but with a permanence. But, in contrast to your phone, these robots will by necessity possess sophisticated object and facial recognition software. Advanced AI can identify individuals, specific objects (like medication, mail), and even infer activities. Public security robots already use this tech; domestic models would have more intimate data.
The core argument for robotic “espionage” is strong. The technology for pervasive in-home surveillance via robots is not speculative; it’s an inherent feature of their design. The lack of specific, robust Western regulation for this new device category is the critical vulnerability. My reference above to Rolls-Royce may not include GPS location, but the broader point about continuous data streams from embedded technology is perfectly valid and more relevant than ever. The public postures of Tesla and of Elon Musk do not provide any enforceable guarantees for end-user privacy in a final consumer robotic product. In fact, the issue has been studiously ignored. It would be a grave mistake for the public to underestimate the gravity of this.
Elon Musk’s Sexbot
“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing,” reads an announcement on X. Source
It is well-known that Musk has turned Twitter into a pornographic and racist website. [68] The LA Times wrote that “it should matter that he is transforming a major social media platform into a racist cesspool.” [69] Another media article referred to an “Overwhelming Explosion Of Adult Content On X”. [70] MSN wrote that “Elon Musk’s X Is Drowning In Adult Content”. [71] It is so bad that one Ph.D. researcher claimed Musk had turned Twitter into “the primary advertising venue at this point for sex workers”. [72] Several columnists have said X is now so graphic that “you would never open the website in public”. Even worse, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she was quitting Elon Musk’s X, which she described as a “global sewer”. [73]
Musk has accomplished much the same with Grok. He added a “spicy” – i.e. pornographic – version where, for the payment of $30 per month, users can carry on obscene sexual conversations with a chatbot. [74] This NSFW (Not Safe For Work) version will produce not only sexually-explicit chats, but it contains an image and video generator. Use your imagination. Given these two, and considering Elon Musk’s known sexual depravities, [75] you can bet he is already planning an Optimus sex-bot. Use your imagination. The best we can do, is to hope that he fails.
Conclusion
Optimus’s “potential” is its primary asset. Its value is almost entirely speculative, based on a future where AGI is solved and seamlessly integrated into a humanoid form. Because the payoff is in the future, it’s immune to being disproven today. Failure to meet a deadline is just a “delay,” not a refutation of the vision. The burden of proof for Optimus’ core promise – human-like learning – is perpetually deferred to an unspecified future date. The goalposts for Optimus move so often, they are on wheels. This is classic Elon Musk. When something fails, dismiss the failure and shift the focus to a different and more grandiose fairy tale for the future.
Creating a robot that can walk with a stable, human-like gait, navigate real-world environments, and perform specific tasks reliably is a monumental feat of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering. This is the hard, unsexy work of building the foundation. Musk’s promise of AGI, while intellectually fascinating, is being used as a rhetorical shortcut to avoid the immense challenges of that foundational work. It hand-waves away the present difficulties with the promise of a future magic bullet.
Tesla’s Optimus remains a well-funded research project, but its claims of superiority are not based on current, demonstrable reality. They are based on faith in a future technological breakthrough. Optimus’s shift in training methods was an admission of prior failures, and highlights the lack of public, verifiable demonstrations from Musk. IRON’s catwalk represents a real engineering milestone, while Optimus’s “potential” remains just that—potential. As proof, Musk claims that “in a year”, Optimus will be able to thread a needle. [76] Like Tesla’s FSD and everything else, this monumental event will happen “next year”. So far, not one of these “promises” have been realised. Musk constantly dismisses current failures to replace them with predictions of something even greater happening in the future.
Tesla’s public demonstrations have primarily shown Optimus in a controlled environment, and the “official” Optimus video record has either been heavily edited or AI-generated. Tesla’s approach secretly relied heavily on teleoperation (human pilots remotely controlling the robot) and motion capture. Almost all “evidence” of Optimus’ abilities has been deceptive or misleading. While it has demonstrated tasks like sorting battery cells or performing simple yoga stretches, its locomotion has not undergone the same public “trial by fire” or had to overcome the same level of public skepticism regarding its basic reality.
The recent shift to training Optimus primarily by “watching videos” is a monumental admission that the previous methods had failed in their core mission. Experts agree that “video learning” for robotics is an unsolved, “moonshot” problem. By pivoting to this, Tesla is effectively saying, “We haven’t solved the practical robotics challenge, so we are now betting on solving a monumental AI challenge instead.”
IRON is a finished product prototype, ready for mass-production. It has a defined aesthetic (with male and female forms), it has been presented on a stage like a consumer product, and its movements are polished for public display. It is being groomed for specific, public-facing service roles. Optimus prototypes, as seen in Tesla’s carefully edited videos, look like engineering testbeds. They are often unfinished “bare metal” skeletons with exposed wiring, being tested in lab or factory settings. While this is a valid stage of development, it reinforces the image of a project that is still in the early R&D phase, far from a polished, deployable product.
Moreover, Musk has stated that the current version of Optimus will be scrapped and he will attempt to design a true humanoid robot, so human-like that “you will want to poke it to see if it’s real”. One observer wrote, “FSD was being massively overhyped via staged videos for years, and Tesla is doing the same with Optimus.” Another wrote, “Elon is doing the same thing with Optimus that he did with FSD – put out staged videos to hype something that likely won’t be real for many years to come.” [77] In all other instances where he has encountered problems with “his” design of anything, Musk never stopped to re-think but instead just doubled down on his original path. If this assessment is true, Optimus is a rushed, flawed product headed for history’s dust bin.
Musk’s “Doubling Down” pattern is a critical insight. This observation about his behavior is well-documented across his ventures (FSD, Cybertruck production, Twitter acquisition). He consistently frames blind stubbornness as visionary determination. In the context of Optimus, this pattern suggests a high likelihood that Tesla will continue to iterate on the current, fundamentally limited bipedal design rather than undertake a ground-up redesign. It will prioritise software demos and ambitious future roadmaps to distract from today’s hardware deficiencies. It will struggle to escape the compromises baked into the initial, rushed architecture.
The design chasm between Optimus and robots like IRON is not just a gap; it’s a difference in kind. Closing that gap would require Tesla discarding most of the Optimus design and starting over with a more mature outlook. Given Elon Musk’s established patterns, such a fundamental course correction seems improbable. Therefore, the project’s greatest legacy may ultimately be as a cautionary tale about the limits of applying a “move fast” software mentality to the hard, iterative problems of advanced robotics hardware.
If a company consistently fails to meet its own benchmarks for a functional prototype, and its response is not to deliver a better prototype but to instead propose an even grander, more technically speculative vision for what it might do someday, then that vision can rightly be classified as an empty, face-saving mechanism.
Tesla have demonstrated a robot that can walk without falling down, and can perform a limited set of teleoperated or pre-programmed tasks. The promise that one will suddenly leapfrog into AGI-powered super-capability is, until proven otherwise, just a story. The burden of proof is on Tesla to demonstrate that Optimus can do anything comparable to IRON’s catwalk, let alone surpass it. Until then, the assessment that IRON represents a more significant and real achievement in the present is not just reasonable; it’s the only conclusion based on the evidence we have.
The market reality for domestic or commercial office robots does not favor the Optimus approach. Who would want a domestic robot that looks and walks like Optimus when they could have an IRON companion? For a robot to be accepted in a home or workplace, it must be safe, reliable, and non-threatening. A robot that moves with an unnatural, jerky gait and has an industrial, exposed-mechanism aesthetic fails on these counts. IRON’s focus on biomimicry and a more refined form factor is directly aligned with the requirements of a companion or service robot. Optimus, in its current form, is not. The assessment that Optimus is headed for the dust bin of history is a highly plausible, if not the most likely, outcome.
While Tesla may eventually produce limited numbers of Optimus for specific, controlled industrial tasks, the idea of millions or even billions of these units in homes and general workplaces seems fantastical based on the current platform. Examining all of Elon Musk’s prior statements and claims about humanoid robots, my conclusion is that he naively (and thoughtlessly) assumed that only he would ever design and produce a humanoid robot. When Musk spoke of “millions” of his robots being in homes and factories, he clearly assumed that his Optimus would be the world’s only option. If you examine his statements today (as of late 2025), he is still apparently unable to accept or understand that the world of humanoid robots has already passed him by, that there are today many dozens of similar products that are mostly superior to his.
Musk appears to have only the most juvenile understanding of the humanoid robot world. His appreciation of this new technology seems limited to his comments in a video where he said, “Who wouldn’t want an R2D2 or a C3PO in their homes?” [38] In that same video, Musk stated that “nobody has a useful robot today. Tesla will make the first useful robot.” The realities of humanoid robots are very far removed from the understanding of this ten-year-old mentality. In another short video, Musk babbles about how the only safety for humanity is to have “a maximally truth-seeking AI”, [38a] while it is well-documented to the point of legend that his own version of AI – Grok – has been trained to lie. [39] [40] This is surreal to the point of mental deficiency. Elon Musk appears to live in his own fantasy world where reality is manufactured at will.
*
Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
His full archive can be seen at
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/and https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at:
2186604556@qq.com
*
NOTES – Part 20
[1] Engineer testimony: A video of Tesla promoting autonomous driving is fake
https://baike.baidu.com/reference/62591749/533aYdO6cr3_z3kATKDZz6ihMy6SMImutrLWUbFzzqIPmGapB5nyTcYm6NIv_-diBkXIvtdsZcEGsu2-WxIZgaFPM6pkAOFNn3f5UjPCzLk
[2] IROBOT CO-FOUNDER CALLS OUT ELON MUSK’S OPTIMUS ROBOT ‘FANTASY’
https://www.slashgear.com/2029521/irobot-roomba-cofounder-elon-musk-tesla-optimus-robot/
[3] IROBOT CO-FOUNDER CALLS OUT ELON MUSK’S OPTIMUS ROBOT ‘FANTASY’
https://www.slashgear.com/2029521/irobot-roomba-cofounder-elon-musk-tesla-optimus-robot/
[4] X-Peng’s new generation of robots take a cat step! Netizen: I suspect that there is a real person hidden in it.
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31912165
[5] IRON catwalk
[6] A video of the demonstration; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Ag_SgsHVg
[7] XPENG Cuts Open Its Lifelike IRON Robot on Stage
https://www.eweek.com/news/xpeng-iron-robot/
[8] Automaker XPENG releases new video to prove its robot ‘IRON’ is not human
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202511/1347511.shtml
[9] Tesla Previews Robot with Human in Spandex Suit
https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a37359183/tesla-robot-human-in-spandex/
[10] Tesla’s humanoid robot is a joke, and Musk’s hype is outrageous
https://m.ithome.com/html/570639.htm
[11] Tesla humanoid robot remotely controlled exposed, Musk faces criticism
https://statementdog.com/news/10103
[12] Tesla Optimus robots face suspicions of human control
https://news.kbs.co.kr/news/pc/view/view.do?ncd=8082379
[13] Optimus appears to be remotely controlled
pic.twitter.com/L89fz8cnOM
[14] Milan Kovac, Head Of Tesla Optimus Program, Departs; https://cleantechnica.com/2025/06/09/milan-kovac-head-of-tesla-optimus-program-departs/
[15] Abandoning motion capture and fully turning to pure visual data collection, Tesla Optimus’ latest training progress is exposed!
https://app.myzaker.com/news/article.php?pk=69085c5fb15ec07899597a79&f=qqconnect
[16] Optimus picking up water bottle
https://v.douyin.com/jfZdvqq8wN0/
https://www.douyin.com/video/7580920295214709477
[17] Optimus knocked over all the bottles and fell down
https://v.douyin.com/TesmQDQPsjk/
[18] Optimus was being teleoperated
https://v.douyin.com/u0i1xU_tqWk/
https://www.douyin.com/video/7581399670199455022
[19] Abandoning motion capture and fully turning to pure visual data collection, Tesla Optimus’ latest training progress is exposed!
https://app.myzaker.com/news/article.php?pk=69085c5fb15ec07899597a79&f=qqconnect
[20] Musk said that “robots earn $30 trillion a year” Tesla set off an AI super wave?
https://finance.eastmoney.com/a/202507283469269722.html
[21] Tesla’s Optimus robot VP is leaving the company; https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/06/teslas-optimus-robot-vp-is-reportedly-leaving-the-company/
[22] Milan Kovac ran Elon Musk’s most important project: What the departure of the Optimus head means for Tesla
https://fortune.com/2025/06/09/milan-kovac-tesla-optimus/
[23] Tesla publicly clarified the mass production time point of OPTIMUS for the first time V3 is expected to be unveiled before Q1 2026
https://vip.stock.finance.sina.com.cn/q/go.php/vReport_Show/kind/lastest/rptid/815043290271/index.phtml
[24] Tesla suspended the production of humanoid robots and modified the design
https://chejiahao.autohome.com.cn/info/20853171#pvareaid=6826274
[25] Tesla humanoid robot, new progress exposed!
https://www.nbd.com.cn/articles/2025-11-03/4127778.html
[26] Tesla’s Optimus robot mass production suffered a setback: annual production fell far short of expectations, with only a few hundred units delivered
https://k.sina.cn/article_1686546714_6486a91a02002z4ie.html
[27] Tesla’s Optimus Robot Project Faces Production Bottlenecks Amid Technical Challenges.
https://www.ainvest.com/news/tesla-optimus-robot-project-faces-production-bottlenecks-technical-challenges-2507/
[27] Tesla suspended robot production, a double blow of leadership turmoil
https://m.163.com/dy/article/K5IE7PSL0556F1QL.html
[28] Tesla suspended the production of humanoid robots and modified the design
https://chejiahao.autohome.com.cn/info/20853171#pvareaid=6826274
[29] Tesla AI VP Milan Kovac Resigns After 9 Years Leading FSD and Optimus Projects
https://gearmusk.com/2025/06/07/tesla-ai-vp-milan-kovac-resigns/
[30] Tesla Optimus robotics vice president Milan Kovac is leaving the company
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/06/tesla-optimus-robotics-vp-is-leaving-the-company.html
[31] Tesla loses some AI staff to a new robotics startup
https://agooka.com/news/usa/tesla-loses-some-ai-staff-to-a-new-robotics-startup/
[32] Tesla Optimus is in shambles as head of program exits, production delayed
https://electrek.co/2025/07/03/tesla-optimus-shambles-head-of-program-exits-production-delayed/
[33] Layoffs and production delays spell darkest hour for Tesla’s Optimus team!
https://xie.infoq.cn/article/3b55819e034e96283e20429f5
[34] Tesla’s Optimus Robot Faces Production Setbacks: Annual Output Falls Far Short of Expectations, With Only Hundreds Delivered
https://tech.huanqiu.com/article/4NeJLNLYm85
[35] The Beauty and the Beast — IRON and Optimus: A Tale of Two Robots
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/22955/
[36] Optimus running, https://v.douyin.com/fYTvvzb0vcI/; https://www.douyin.com/video/7580253071712783643
[37] Three robots running; https://www.douyin.com/video/7579917368638344499
[38] Optimus and T800; https://v.douyin.com/3wEVaDz3IjA/;https://www.douyin.com/video/7580689337700928778
[38] Musk babble on robots (nobody has a useful robot)
https://v.douyin.com/a9oq775TeVk/; https://www.douyin.com/video/7575010626527890730
[38a] Maximally truth-seeking; https://v.douyin.com/owrdSJRfvO8/
[39] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 12 — xAI and Grok; https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/21776/
[40] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 18 — Fraud Update – xAI and Grok; https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/22101/
[41] Tesla’s AI director is reported to have launched an internal mobilization: next year will be the “most difficult year of their lives”
https://baike.baidu.com/reference/62591749/533aYdO6cr3_z3kATPXdzvn5YS7NZNr66-DXV7FzzqIP0XOpSo_sUIEz6NYwsPVmHQ_e_pttbZkGyeGuB0pN6v8WduUzRbwhmX78WzvFzbvwuI9zl4MV-tEW
[42] Ashok Eluswamy
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%98%BF%E8%82%96%E5%85%8B%C2%B7%E5%9F%83%E5%8D%A2%E6%96%AF%E7%93%A6%E7%B1%B3/62591749
[43] Abandoning motion capture and fully turning to pure visual data collection, Tesla Optimus’ latest training progress is exposed!
https://app.myzaker.com/news/article.php?pk=69085c5fb15ec07899597a79&f=qqconnect
[44] Tesla’s AI head warns that 2026 will face the biggest challenge
https://ai.zol.com.cn/1080/10809664.html
[45] Abandoning motion capture and fully turning to pure visual data collection, Tesla Optimus’ latest training progress is exposed!
https://app.myzaker.com/news/article.php?pk=69085c5fb15ec07899597a79&f=qqconnect
[46] Tesla and technology executives debate the path of autonomous driving technology: pure vision VS multi-sensor fusion
https://news.zol.com.cn/1037/10370329.html
[47] The Beauty and the Beast — IRON and Optimus: A Tale of Two Robots
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/22955/
[48] Hardcore showdown: X-Peng IRON and Tesla Optimus, a technical route game on the humanoid robot track
https://blog.csdn.net/weixin_73527660/article/details/154578477
[49] Hardcore showdown: Xpeng IRON and Tesla Optimus, a technical route game on the humanoid robot track
https://blog.csdn.net/weixin_73527660/article/details/154578477
[50] 2025 Robot First Year: X-peng IRON/Yushu H2/Optimus Prime/1X-Neo software and hardware structure analysis
https://blog.csdn.net/VBsemi/article/details/154837120
[51] Hardcore showdown: X-peng IRON and Tesla Optimus, a technical route game on the humanoid robot track
https://blog.csdn.net/weixin_73527660/article/details/154578477
[52] X-peng Motors unveils AI humanoid robot Iron, challenging Tesla’s Optimus
https://m.huanqiu.com/article/4K970yDIWco
[53] Tesla’s humanoid robots aren’t the right fit for factories, says former Optimus lead
https://www.techspot.com/news/108056-tesla-humanoid-robots-arent-right-fit-factories-former.html
[54] Tesla suspended the production of humanoid robots and modified the design
https://chejiahao.autohome.com.cn/info/20853171#pvareaid=6826274
[55] Rolls-Royce uses engine performance data to improve service
https://www.qoco.aero/case-studies/case-study-rolls-royce-uses-engine-performance-data-to-improve-service
[56] Intelligent Engine Health Monitoring
https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/our-stories/discover/2019/intelligent-engine-health-monitoring.aspx
[57] The power of engine health information
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2024-04-26/power-engine-health-information
[58] Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/apple-agrees-to-pay-95m-delete-private-conversations-siri-recorded/
[59] IDF bans Android phones for senior officers, iPhones now mandatory, Army Radio reports
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-876327
[60] Here Are The Facts About The Kill Switch Mandate For Cars That’s Already Passed
https://www.carscoops.com/2023/12/here-are-the-facts-about-the-kill-switch-mandate-for-cars-thats-already-passed/
[61] Are We Really Fine With Government Required Driver Monitoring And Remote Kill Switches?
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/are-we-really-fine-with-government-required-driver-monitoring-and-remote-kill-44507698
[62] Your Car Is Watching You
https://www.countere.com/home/section-24220-the-future-of-cars-remote-kill-switch
[63] Subaru Flaw Allowed Remote Control of Millions of Cars in the US
https://cyberinsider.com/subaru-flaw-allowed-remote-control-of-millions-of-cars-in-the-us/
[64] Tesla owners will be able to remotely control their car through their phones ‘like RC cars’ within ~6 weeks, says Elon Musk
https://electrek.co/2018/11/01/tesla-remotely-control-car-phones-like-rc-cars-elon-musk/
[65] The national standard GB/T 45502-2025 “General Requirements for Information Security of Service Robots” led by China Evaluation is about to be implemented, and CCID robot certification escorts product safety
https://cstc.org.cn/info/1796/256391.htm
[66] General requirements for information security of service robots
https://webstore.spc.net.cn/bwonline/9e2b74f7423f548d405996e62937064a.html
[67] General requirements for information security of service robots
http://www1.csres.com/detail/425201.html
[68] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 13 — Neuralink, DOGE, Twitter
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/21803/
[69] Why Elon Musk, the bully, is seen by many, including liberals, as a hero
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-04/elon-musk-racism-x-bully-savior-culture
[70] Elon Musk Promises ‘Major Purge’ To Wipe Off Overwhelming Explosion Of Adult Content On X
https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/04/38104457/elon-musk-promises-major-purge-to-wipe-off-overwhelming-explosion-of-adult-content-on-x?itm_source=parsely-api
[71] Elon Musk’s X Is Drowning In Adult Content
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/elon-musks-x-is-drowning-in-adult-content-so-much-that-you-cant-scroll-it-in-public/ar-BB1kYA8q
[72] X is testing ‘adult content’ communities, screenshots suggest
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/x-adult-content-communities-screenshots-twitter
[73] Paris mayor quits X, calling social media platform a ‘vast global sewer’
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20231128-paris-mayor-quits-x-calling-social-media-platform-a-vast-global-sewer
[74] Grok App Adds AI Image and Video Generator With NSFW ‘Spicy’ Mode
https://www.pcmag.com/news/grok-app-adds-ai-image-and-video-generator-with-nsfw-spicy-mode
[75] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 2. Character Summary of a Delusional Sociopath
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/20682/
[76] Tesla Optimus humanoid robot will be able to thread a needle in a year
https://www.teslaoracle.com/2023/12/22/tesla-optimus-humanoid-robot-will-be-able-to-thread-a-needle-in-a-year-says-elon-musk/
[77] Milan Kovac, Head Of Tesla Optimus Program, Departs
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/06/09/milan-kovac-head-of-tesla-optimus-program-departs/
*
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