"It should be naturally friendly, be able to navigate through a world built for humans and eliminate dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks." He will also be designed so that he is not particularly fast. "You will be able to run away from it."

According to Musk, the Tesla bot will be around 177 cm tall and weigh 57 kg. "It has some kind of screen on its head for useful information, but otherwise it's basically equipped with an autopilot system," said the entrepreneur. The Tesla robot will be equipped with eight cameras and a fully-fledged self-driving computer and will use the same tools that Tesla uses in its cars, he said. "The hardest thing about a useful humanoid robot is that it can't navigate the world without being specifically trained." However, it has to work line by line without explicit instructions. "You can talk to it and say: 'Please take this screw and fasten it to the car with the wrench', and it should be able to do that."

Humanoid robots and their impact on the economy

Tesla wants a humanoid robot for dangerous work.

© Courtesy of Tesla, Inc./dpa

The use of human robots will have far-reaching consequences, Musk predicted. "In the future, physical labor will be an option. If you want to do it, you can do it, but you don't have to do it." This obviously has profound implications for the economy, he said, because if you consider that the economy at its fundamental level is made up of labor, then there may no longer be any real limits to the economy.

Tesla is known for announcing major technical innovations at a very early stage of development and putting systems live that are not yet considered ready for the market by other companies. This also applies to the self-driving option in Tesla's 'Autopilot' driver assistance system, which has been criticized following a series of rear-end collisions. Critics claim that the name 'Autopilot' is an exaggeration that invites negligent use. Tesla even calls the next stage of the program 'Full Self-Driving', although it remains merely an assistance system according to the criteria commonly used in the industry.