Tesla boss Elon Musk confirmed this week that the company’s focus for 2022 would be on developing the ‘Optimus’ humanoid robot.
Speaking on an earnings call—and off the back of a record-breaking year for the carmaker where it delivered 936,222 cars, 87% more than it did in 2020—Musk said: “We will not be introducing new vehicle models this year. We will do a lot of engineering and tooling to create those vehicles—the Tesla Cybertruck, Semi, and Roadster—and be ready to bring those to production hopefully next year (2023).
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“In terms of priority of products, I think the most important product development we’re doing this year is actually the ‘Optimus’ humanoid robot,” Musk added. “This, I think, has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time.”
More significant than the vehicle business. Woah.
Though, Musk’s plans for the Cybertruck—when it does eventually land—are significant too.
“In terms of a rough order of magnitude,” he said, “we’d like Cybertruck to be at least on the order of a quarter of a million vehicles a year. But it’ll take us a moment to get to that level.”
So, no new cars this year—indeed, there’s been no movement on the $25,000 (P1.27 million) compact car either, because the company’s got “too much on our plate right now—but a focus very much on scaling output and tooling for new model production next year.
Oh, and robots.
Tesla Cybertruck
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
