EVERY week we bring you news and reviews of all the latest models from established brands and those new to the market. But many of these companies make far more than just cars, producing everything from aircraft to sausages. We take a look at some of the diverse products these automotive firms also manufacture.
Robots
TESLA
ROBOTS made by car companies are nothing new. Honda’s Asimo, for example, was a regular on the motor show circuit. But none has come with the hype or weight of expectation as Tesla’s Optimus, which CEO Elon Musk has said will “ultimately be worth more than the car business and worth more than full self-driving”. But Optimus’s debut in 2021 was far from auspicious – it was a person in a robot suit.
But as Musk considers Tesla cars the equivalent of robots on wheels, perhaps a humanoid version is inevitable. Optimus uses a central computer, a 2.3kWh battery pack and structural actuators to allow it to move, and long-term the plan is for a commercially available version to be able to perform mundane tasks
