According to Tesla, Inc. 's official announcement, Tesla, Inc. 2022 AI Day will be held on October 1 (September 30, 2022, North American time) in Palo Alto, California. The robot Tesla Bot is expected to make its debut at that time.

Musk said again on social media on the 29th that there will be a lot of technical details and cool hardware demonstrations on Tesla, Inc. AI Day.

It is reported that the humanoid robot to be released is called "Optimus Prime" (Optimus), which is Tesla, Inc. 's most important product this year. Musk has pointed out that the Optimus may even be more important than the car business, and the first humanoid robot will begin production in 2023.

In an article published in China Cyber letter magazine, Musk wrote that the initial positioning of the Tesla, Inc. robot was to replace people in repetitive, boring and dangerous work, but the long-term goal was to make it serve thousands of families. such as cooking, mowing lawns, taking care of the elderly and so on.

Since then, as the production scale expands and costs fall, humanoid robots will become more practical year by year, and a household robot may be cheaper than a car in the future, perhaps in less than a decade, it said. people can buy a robot for their parents as a birthday present.

What are the possible effects?

CITIC pointed out that according to various sources, Tesla, Inc. has begun to prepare for mass production of humanoid robots. Because of its intelligent technology reserve, large-scale production capacity, and Musk's rich success stories, Tesla, Inc. has the strength to develop robots.

It believes that it can be compared to Tesla, Inc. 's 2006 Roadster, as the world's first mass-produced electric sports car, although the price is high, but set a new energy benchmark, far surpassing the popular electric car GM EV-1 in the same period.

Therefore, CITIC predicts that the initial products of Tesla, Inc. robot will set a benchmark and eventually open up the prospect of commercialization.

Minsheng Securities believes that the most important significance of the arrival of Tesla, Inc. bot is to open the rapid development process of the entire industry. In the coming period of time, it is expected that many science and technology enterprises will strive in the direction of humanoid robots to compete for the race track, and the industry trend may accelerate to us.

In terms of market space, according to the McKinsey report, about 400 million jobs in the world will be replaced by automated robots by 2030. According to the Optimus unit price of 300000 yuan, the global humanoid robot market space can reach 120 trillion in the long run, which is a new and unprecedentedly huge blue ocean market.

Giants scramble for layout

In fact, it is worth mentioning that in the past period of time, in addition to Tesla, Inc., many giants are also scrambling to layout the robot track.

In the 2022 Lei Jun annual speech, XIAOMI released the full-size humanoid bionic robot "CyberOne". Lei Jun said that CyberOne has a smart brain and can perceive 45 human semantic emotions and distinguish 85 environmental semantics. XIAOMI developed his own whole-body control algorithm to coordinate the movement of 21 joints.

Tencent Robotics X Robotics Lab announced the latest research progress of its wheeled-legged robot Ollie on Sept. 9, showing the first exposure of "tactile interaction" and exclusive "two-wheeled step", further enriching the robot's "senses" and improving its motion control ability.

CICC believes that mobile phone factories and automobile factories have entered the humanoid racetrack one after another, which confirms that the humanoid racetrack has sufficient commercial value and development potential.

According to the report on the Development of China's Robot Industry, China's robot market will reach nearly 120 billion yuan in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 22% in five years. It is estimated that by 2024, the size of China's robot market will exceed 170 billion yuan.

Related industrial chains and companies

According to the Soochow Securities Research report, the upstream of the robot industry chain is mainly core software and hardware, the hardware mainly includes servo motors, reducers, controllers, sensors, etc., and the software includes machine vision, human-computer interaction, machine learning, system control, etc.; the middle reaches is the manufacturer of humanoid robots; downstream, there are no mature commercial applications, and possible application scenarios include welcome reception, exhibition hall guidance, university scientific research, and so on.

Which segments are likely to benefit? By comprehensively combing the research reports of a number of securities firms, the arrangement and summary are as follows:

1. Three core components-reducer, controller and servo system.

Soochow Securities pointed out that the importance of core components is very prominent. On the one hand, high-performance components are the basis for robot perception and movement; on the other hand, the cost of core components is relatively high.

According to the Guosheng Securities Research report, from the point of view of the cost composition, the reducer, controller, servo system and other three major components are the highest technical barriers and the largest cost share in the industrial chain, accounting for 35%, 10% and 25% respectively.

In addition, CITIC Construction Investment believes that after large-scale mass production of Tesla bot, motor, battery demand, sensors, flexible materials and so on will also open up the trend.

2. Structural parts.

As the "skeleton" of the humanoid robot, the structure forms the internal basic structure of the robot, connects the whole body structure in one, bears the load and supports the whole body, and affects the stiffness and load size of the robot structure. Citic Construction Investment estimates that the cost of structural components accounts for about 20%.

3. Sensor.

Sensors are the core components to realize the environmental perception and interaction function of humanoid robots, and the number of sensors will be several times or even ten times that of industrial robots. Usually a robot is equipped with a set of machine vision system and selectively equipped with a set of voice system, but each joint may be equipped with position, angular velocity, torque sensors and other internal sensors, and its market demand will also usher in rapid growth.

4. Flexible materials.

As a "skin", the robot shell covers a large area, which will affect its working scene and environmental adaptability. It is necessary to use flexible materials with light weight and good performance, such as silica gel, carbon fiber, etc., so we can pay attention to domestic flexible material enterprises.

Of course, CITIC also pointed out that whether the blue ocean in the huge market can be realized depends on mass production and cost control. Due to the complex structure and high control performance requirements, the cost of humanoid robot is very expensive, the reality is more than one million yuan. Under the premise of ensuring performance, at the same time to achieve mass production and reduce costs, will be the key to open the market.

The following are the related companies and businesses summarized by CITIC.