The toughest year for Tesla

Tesla's Optimus robot. Photo: Reuters .

During an all-hands meeting with Tesla’s Autopilot and Optimus teams last month, Ashok Elluswamy, the company’s vice president of AI software, predicted a challenging year. “If you work on Tesla’s AI teams, next year will be the hardest year of your life,” he said.

According to Business Insider , Elluswamy said 2026 will be a challenging milestone for the electric car company. Employees need to be prepared to work at a higher intensity than ever before to achieve the company's goals.

One attendee described the meeting as a “call to arms” for the entire team. Senior AI executives spoke for nearly two hours, laying out ambitious timelines for Optimus production and targets for Tesla’s Robotaxi service.

These two divisions are at the heart of one of Elon Musk’s biggest promises. During an October earnings call, the CEO said Tesla plans to have its Robotaxi service operating in eight to 10 metropolitan areas by the end of 2025. The company also aims to have more than 1,000 autonomous ride-hailing vehicles on the road.

Meanwhile, Tesla is also aiming to start production of Optimus robots around the end of 2026. “That production expansion will take some time to reach an annual production rate of 1 million units,” Musk said during the meeting.

Earlier this month, Tesla shareholders approved a compensation package for Musk that could make him the world’s first trillionaire. The package calls for a number of ambitious milestones, including deploying 1 million self-driving cars on the road, as well as humanoid robots.

Some compensation consultants say Musk’s pay package is rare in the industry and could be key to keeping the billionaire focused on Tesla. In October, he joked that he needed more stock because he “didn’t feel comfortable building a robot army without having a strong enough influence on the company.”

Tesla's Autopilot team shares office space with the Optimus team, and has long been one of the company's top priorities. The group is largely kept separate from other engineers, and its organizational chart is kept secret, according to Business Insider.

Elluswamy took over leadership of the Optimus team earlier this year after Milan Kovac, the team’s former vice president, left the company. Tesla has since shifted the team’s focus to a more camera-based approach, similar to how the Full Self-Driving software was trained.

Former employees say the Autopilot team is known for its long hours, and it has weekly meetings with the CEO. Musk said in October that he meets with the team every Friday, sometimes lasting until midnight.

Source: https://znews.vn/nam-kho-khan-nhat-cho-tesla-post1602543.html