‘Plan to launch humanoid robot prototype next year’

Speaking at Tesla’s AI Day event, the billionaire entrepreneur said the robot, which stands around five foot eight inches tall, would be able to handle jobs from attaching bolts to cars with a wrench, or picking up groceries at stores.

The robot would have “profound implications for the economy,” Musk said, addressing a labour shortage. He said it was important to make the machine not “super-expensive.” The AI Day event came amid growing scrutiny over the safety and capability of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” advanced driver assistant system.

Musk didn’t comment on that scrutiny over the safety of Tesla technology but said that he was confident of achieving full self-driving with higher safety than humans using current in-car cameras and computers.

US safety regulators earlier this week opened an investigation into Tesla’s driver assistant system because of accidents where Tesla cars crashed into stationary police cars and fire trucks.

Two US senators have also called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Tesla’s claims for its “Full Self-Driving” system.