Tesla introduces humanoid robot Optimus

CEO Elon Musk had the prototype run across the stage at the company’s “AI Day”. Also: Google is planning a data center in Berlin-Brandenburg and Mobileye is applying for an IPO.

Good morning! Even during the weekend, work in the digital scene continued in many places.

The top topics:

Elon Musk presented an early prototype of a humanoid robot at Tesla’s “AI Day” on Friday. “Optimus” came onto the stage with a little wobble, but overall the prototype was already moving much like a human, walking on two legs and waving at the crowd.

Musk said the electric car maker is developing special batteries and components called actuators for the robots. According to the Tesla boss, customers should be able to buy “Optimus” in three to five years. The event, which featured speakers from Musk and other executives from the automaker’s AI and hardware teams, was primarily intended as an engineering recruitment event in Palo Alto, California. [Mehr bei CNBC, Bloomberg und Handelsblatt]

on Founder scene: The question of whether Ban cars in inner cities can, appears again and again. But is that even possible? Our columnist Don Dahlmann found some positive examples, including the small town of Houten in the Netherlands, which has almost completely banned cars from city life. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

And here are the other headlines of the night and the past few days:

Google is planning a data center for the greater Berlin-Brandenburg area. For this purpose, the US tech company has targeted a commercial area almost 20 kilometers south of BER Airport, as stated in several German media. Google spokesman Ralf Bremer confirmed to the “Handelsblatt” that Google had initiated the purchase of a property in Mittenwalde and was examining other options in the region. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt]

Mobileyea subsidiary of Intel, which makes chips, cards and software for self-driving cars, has filed for an IPO. The Israel-based company associated with Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, GM and Ford works together, wants to list on the US technology exchange Nasdaq. Intel acquired the company for $15.3 billion in 2017 and previously announced plans to list Mobileye later this year. The funds from the IPO are to be used to finance further chip factories and a foundry. [Mehr bei CNBC]

Tesla plans to significantly ramp up global production of its best-selling Model Y and Model 3 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter. This growth will be built on in the coming year as the newer plants in Austin and Berlin ramp up production. The latter show internal plans of the US electric car manufacturer, which are available to the Reuters news agency. Tesla could thus achieve the production target envisaged by CEO Elon Musk in the coming quarter and allow the automaker to catch up with competitors like BMW by the end of 2023. In the third quarter, however, the carmaker delivered fewer vehicles than experts had expected: almost 344,000 cars went to customers. The corona lockdown in Shanghai slowed down the plant there. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt und Reuters]

if Tesla-CEO Elon Musk started earlier this year TwitterA number of tech and media luminaries texted him with ideas, advice and cash offers before he started buying up shares. Among them were ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Larry Ellison of Oracleventure investor Joe Lonsdale and Axel Springer-CEO Mathias Döpfner. Musk has since tried to back out of his offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion. The case is currently before the court. [Mehr bei CNBC, Techcrunch und Business Insider]

Robinhood announced on Friday that it would close five more offices as part of a restructuring program. Despite the site closures, no further employees should have to leave the company. The Californian online broker had laid off almost every fourth employee at the beginning of August. [Mehr bei Reuters]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: In the past five years there have been consistently larger financing rounds and exits. The should be correspondingly high return on government funds be. An evaluation. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

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Have a good start into the week!

Your Gründerszene editors