Tesla is known for its unique invite-only events, and the company's official AI Day 2022 was another example. If you frequent social media, you'll often see Tesla fans and owners commenting about how Tesla really knows how to throw a party. While the party part portion of the event may be fun, what's clearly more important is the company's future plans, which it has alluded to and promoted via various displays at its parties.
At the recent AI Day event, Tesla showcased its upcoming fully electric Semi truck. Once again, it was decorated with impressive graffiti. In fact, as you can see from several social media posts from the event, the Tesla Semi features the Optimus the Tesla Bot, as well as the Tesla Cybertruck.
To be clear, the Optimus robots are actually shown building the Cybertruck, which is Tesla's plan for the future. As you can see, a group of event attendees watched in awe as artists finished up the graffiti mural on the Semi's trailer.
Tesla has made it increasingly clear the Semi is coming soon. While most people expected it to come next year, along with the Cybertruck, it seems the first copies could ship to reservation-holders, such as Pepsi, as soon as possible. This makes sense since the Semi will be produced in low volume in smaller batches, unlike the Cybertruck.
While many Tesla fans, owners, and reservation-holders are excited about the arrival of the Cybertruck, it seems Tesla and Elon Musk may be putting more weight on the Tesla Bot. If Musk's crazy ideas work out as planned, Tesla's AI robot situation could be a massive game-changer. It may all seem far-fetched, but so did building a successful automotive startup that only produces EVs, landing and reusing rockets, and digging tunnels under cities.
For those who haven't been following Tesla and Musk over the years, the CEO has continued to claim that it's Tesla's manufacturing edge that will keep it ahead of rivals. However, there was a time when too much automation actually caused Tesla plenty of headaches and setbacks. Musk's "alien dreadnaught" concept may have been a good idea in concept, but it didn't work out so well during the initial Model 3 ramp.
It seems Musk has realized that automotive assembly line automation in the more "traditional" sense isn't what's going to push Tesla forward. Rather, he believes that employing robots that can perform the tasks of humans, complete with "brains," is the better option. It's arguably much more exciting, but time will tell if Tesla can make it all work properly.
