Elon Musk shifts focus to Tesla Optimus 3 mass production as Taiwanese suppliers Mirle and Asia Optical secure component contracts
After the initial IPO stages of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla Elon Musk is beginning to turn more of his attention toward the large scale manufacturing of the most recent iteration of the Optimus 3 humanoid robot. According to UDN, a Taiwan based news agency, the most important Taiwanese component suppliers such as automation equipment manufacturer Mirle and precision lens manufacturer Asia Optical are amassing supply chain arrangements for mass manufacturing of the robotics system. This could signal the start of a large scale wave of market demand for humanoid robots.
The automation expert Mirle has taken the first steps to send out vital joint modules and harmonic reducers to a very important target application the Optimus 3. In line with Tesla instructions to set up a non Red supply chain capacity to help avoid geo political manufacturing bottleneck, the company is venturing outside China. It is working with the industrial partner Kehdiri and its own investment subsidiary, Mirle Ying Technology to set up a joint venture called Ko Mirle Thailand. Mirle executives refused to comment on client agreement but came out to say that their progressive robotic parts had being developed according to schedule.
The new manufacturing group will be financed through a joint investment of approx 1.667 billion NTD, 51% of which will be controlled by Kedari with Mirle and Mirle Ying Technikal accounting for 39% and 10% respectively. The manufacturing will be situated within an already established Kedari industrial park in the Rayong Province of Thailand enabling the joint venture to execute a full scale production during the second half of 2007 ahead of the delivery schedule of its major customer.
Asia Optical is another major supplier for the launch of the Optimus 3. It is prepped to provide the visual sensing component of the humanoid platform. The company is known for its spherical and aspherical glass lens technology which will be employed in the manufacture of the high resolution, high precision lenses used in the visual sensors of the robot. Asia Optical Chairman Robert Lai has announced that the company has begun cooperating with 3 EU and U.S based companies on low volume trial production of sensory hand devices and visual recognition systems for the robot.
A single robot alone needs at least 7 to 8 individual lenses to handle simple spatial perception and tactile providing per the design parameters. Large scale sample and trial production have been done for Asia Optical. Mass production will start at between the last quarter of this year to the first half of next year, generally following the time schedule of the Tesla humanoid robotics program.
Musk has planned a significantly accelerated manufacturing schedule for the robots division mentioning that the optimus plans will overtake the trends of how big the project of the company will be establishing. The assembly thread of the version 3 of the Optimus is supposed to launch in late July/ August at the Fremont assembly plant. He has also announced plans to build a second focused robotics manufacturing plant in Austin and Texas and bring it online by summer 2027. The ultimate goals is the yearly manufacturing production of an optimistic 10 million units and the Optimus 3 will be able to be regarded as the most cutting edge Robotics platform available in the global arena.
