At Tesla's AI Day, Elon Musk unveils the humanoid robot "Optimus."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils his much-touted humanoid robot "Optimus" at the company's "AI Day" event on Friday.

According to the billionaire, a business based on robots would be more valuable than a business based on cars. He wants to go beyond self-driving cars, which he has repeatedly promised but has yet to deliver.

A model of the robot walked onto the stage and waved to the audience members. A video of the robot carrying a box, watering plants, and moving metal bars was shown in the automaker's factory.

"Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as soon as possible," Musk said at the event at a Tesla office in Palo Alto, California.

"There is still a lot of work to be done to improve Optimus and demonstrate that it works."

Musk stated that humanoid robots today "lack a brain" because they lack the intelligence to navigate the world on their own. He also stated that they are expensive and produced in limited quantities.

He stated that Optimus would be a "extremely capable robot" that would be mass-produced in the millions and would cost much less than a car, at less than $20,000.

Musk was also expected to discuss Tesla's long-awaited self-driving car technology.

In May, the CEO stated that if the world's most valuable car company did not have fully self-driving cars, it would be worth "basically nothing." In addition, the company is dealing with an increase in regulatory investigations and technological challenges.

"There will be a lot of technical detail and cool hardware demos," Musk tweeted late Wednesday night. He also stated that the purpose of the event was to find new engineers. Tesla's track record of live demonstrations is not flawless.

In 2019, Musk had an employee throw a steel ball at the armored window of a new electric pickup truck, and the window broke.

The most important test for the robot is its ability to deal with unexpected events.

Musk discussed Tesla's plans for humanoid robots at the company's AI day in August of last year. This year's AI Day was moved from August to September in order for the robot prototype to be tested and production to begin as soon as next year.

Tesla teased when the bot would be shown to the public on social media by posting a picture of metal robot hands forming a heart shape. However, according to Heni Ben Amor, a robotics professor at Arizona State University, creating hands that look like human hands and can do different things is extremely difficult.

Musk claims that Optimus used to do boring or dangerous jobs like moving parts around Tesla factories or using a wrench to tighten a bolt on a car. This was a reference to the Autobots' powerful and good-hearted leader in the Transformers franchise.

"There are so many things that humans can do with their hands that robots cannot." And it makes no difference whether the robot is a robot arm or a humanoid, according to Jonathan Hurst, chief technology officer at Agility Robotics, which makes humanoid robots.

Musk has stated that in the future, robots could be used in homes to do things like make dinner, mow the lawn, care for the elderly, and even act as a "buddy" or sex partner for people.

At the event on Friday, he will also discuss Tesla's high-speed computer, Dojo, which was unveiled last year and is a key component of the company's work on self-driving technology.

Musk believes Tesla will be fully self-driving this year and that a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals will be mass-produced by 2024.

Musk promised 1 million robotaxis by 2020 at a 2019 "Autonomy" event, but no one has received one.