Robotics Special: Tesla falls behind in robotics push

Welcome back, Superhuman. If you think doing chores is boring, think again. Robotics startup Figure AI just went viral with a video of its 02 humanoid robot helping out around the house. Meanwhile, with electric vehicle sales in a slump, Tesla investors are buckling up for a bumpy ride as Musk pivots to Plan B: robotics.

WHAT’S NEXT

The most important news and breakthroughs in robotics this week

1. Tesla’s robotics push is not going as planned: As the company’s stock continues to tumble post-earnings due to a slowdown in EV sales, its pivot to robotaxis and humanoid robots isn’t faring any better. According to the Information, Tesla's humanoid production is falling significantly behind on its 5,000-unit goal for the year. Meanwhile, regulatory roadblocks in California are threatening to stifle Musk’s target to deploy Tesla’s much-hyped robotaxi service across "half the US by year-end".

2. Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock goes viral with F.02 update: One of the most dynamic startups in the industry, Figure AI just dropped a viral new video of the company’s 02 humanoid going through laundry chores at home. X users were impressed by the robot’s dexterity, which appears to be powered by Helix, a generalist Vision-Language-Action model unveiled earlier this year. While the company is currently focused on industrial applications, Adcock has hinted that home trials may be coming up later this year.

3. Amazon-backed startup unveils a 'brain' for almost any robot: Skild AI has unveiled "Skild Brain," an AI model designed to work across virtually any robot platform, from humanoids to tabletop arms. Unlike competitors who retrofit existing vision-language models with minimal robotics data, Skild claims its approach combines "large-scale simulation and internet video data" to potentially train a robotics foundation model with physical common sense.

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ROBOTS IN ACTION

How robots are transforming the world around us

🐰 Furry Friend: Florida has an unlikely ally in the fight against invasive Burmese pythons. The South Florida Water Management District has deployed solar-powered robot rabbits designed to mimic real rabbits' movements and heat signatures to lure the massive snakes out of hiding. When a python is detected, the furry bot alerts officials, who dispatch snake removal teams to the location.

✋ Coming in Handy: Virginia Tech engineers have developed a robotic hand that can build a pizza from scratch— but its real mission lies beyond the kitchen. The adaptive system uses a joystick-style controller and AI interpretation to function as "an extension of a person's natural movements", and aims to help people with mobility impairments regain their independence in daily tasks.

🧹 House Help: TikTok parent company ByteDance has unveiled an AI-powered robotic system capable of tackling household chores like hanging laundry and cleaning tables. The system runs on GR-3, a vision-action model that enables robots to follow natural language commands for general tasks. It even completed multi-step tasks like "cleaning up the dining table" with a single prompt.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Everything else you need to know this week

Here are the biggest developments in the robotics space that you should know about:

• J.P. Morgan reports that investment in robotics startups has nearly doubled to $12B since 2020, with industrial automation and defense leading the charge.

• Lyft has announced plans to deploy robotic shuttles from Austria's Benteler Group in late 2026, as Uber races ahead with multiple self-driving partnerships.

• Waymo is planning to launch its robotaxi service in Dallas next year, with rental car company Avis managing its all-electric Jaguar I-Pace fleet.

• Chinese camera maker Insta360 is challenging drone giant DJI with the world's first sub-249-gram drone with a built-in 8K 360-degree camera.

• Chinese firm Fourier Robotics is set to unveil its GR-3 humanoid robot this week, billing it as possibly the "most adorable humanoid robot yet".

• Startup EngineAI has picked up $140M in funding to mass-produce its humanoids, which it claims achieve "millimeter-level precision" in complex tasks.

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ROBOT OF THE WEEK

A robot that caught our eye this week

They look like they came straight out of Doc Ock’s toy cabinet.

Lume is a robotic lamp designed to blend into home decor while assisting with household chores. It features a sleek design that transforms from a lamp into a functional robot, aiming to address privacy and safety concerns associated with most humanoid robots. Set to ship in the summer next year. Watch it in action here.

You can check it out here.

ROBO REEL

Watch: Humanoid robots go at it during World AI Conference in Shanghai

It was Fight Night at the World AI Conference in Shanghai last weekend.

Humanoid robots threw down in a grueling boxing match at the World AI Conference. This robotic Fight Club was just one highlight of China's rapidly advancing humanoid sector, which unveiled over 150 robots and 60 new models from 80 different companies — all part of the country's aggressive push to dominate global robotics markets.

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Until next time,

Zain and the Superhuman AI team