Tesla's Roadster, the one Tesla you'll still drive yourself, jumps five cars with Optimus driving

Tesla's new Roadster flies on SpaceX thrusters, its wings moved by Optimus actuators

▶ Watch the video

At the unveil near Waco the car drove upside down on a half-pipe, hopped over five cars and flipped in mid-air on cold-gas thrusters, and Tesla clocked 0-60 mph in 0.81 seconds. Its active wings run on the Optimus actuator system, and an Optimus rode in the driver's seat for the stunts (@demaboap). Musk says production is planned for 2028 (@StockSavvyShay).

Awe, with an "it's just a demo" chorus. r/singularity's top reply: "Cool, but unlikely to ever be a thing other than a cool demo." @KyleMorgenstein: "this is a fundamentally easier control problem than humanoids / dexterous manipulation". @RonDeSantis: "We will make sure that it's legal" (269K).

In 2019 Elon said that in three years any car but a Tesla would be "like owning a horse". Seven years later Tesla sells its own horse: Elon says that long term, the Roadster is the only Tesla you'll drive yourself. And on launch night even the horse drove itself ("to make sure we don't kill anyone"), with an Optimus in the driver's seat, arms up like on a rollercoaster.

1. Agility's Digit 5 will work 90 minutes on a 9-minute charge

Nyobolt's fast-charging battery is designed to give the humanoid a 10:1 run-to-charge ratio, up from Digit 4's 2:1, so it can work more than 20 hours a day. Early access with the battery is expected in the first half of 2027 (Agility).

No reactions yet beyond Agility's own posts.

Heat: low · 8.8K views, 5 posts · quiet on Reddit

2. Tau Robotics opens bookings for humanoid house cleaners in Los Angeles

▶ Watch the video

After San Francisco, its invite-only service comes to LA at $30 an hour per humanoid (@Buncahn). A remote human supervises each robot, deciding when it works on its own and when to steer it, and a staff member stays on site, per Tau's FAQ quoted on r/accelerate.

Excited, with privacy jokes. r/accelerate's top reply: "Faster than expected. For now, it's just a rich people's novelty." Another: "they just film the entire inside of your house?"

Heat: medium · 162K views, 18 posts (135K on the launch) · 171 pts on r/accelerate

3. Standard Bots lets factories "vibe code" their robot arms

▶ Watch the video

Standard Bots AI is a new platform for programming its arms from an iPad, pitched on faster setups, changeovers and paybacks (@standardbots). The company says it has 400+ customers (@RoboStrategy).

Little so far. CEO Evan Beard, in @RoboStrategy's interview: "This allows you to essentially vibe code your robot".

Heat: low · 65K views, 4 posts · quiet on Reddit

EmbodiedEvo: coding agents practise robot tasks and hand down what they learned

Einsia AI's agents turn their attempts in a simulated playground into reusable code "Skills" and written "Lessons", which fresh agents apply to unseen layouts with no weight updates. It tops the RoboDojo leaderboard at 38.95% success. It matters because robot skill can compound across tasks as code anyone can inspect, without retraining a model each time.

Gemini models beat their general scores on robot arms

A small pilot robotics index from robocurve and @drewtnguyen, built on arm tasks like "Stack Bowls" and "Cap Pen", tracks Epoch's general Capabilities Index except for Gemini: leaving Gemini out raises the correlation from 0.20 to 0.96. It matters because robot skill tracked spatial reasoning (a photos-to-floor-plans test, best of 18) far better than general smarts, and Gemini is strong there.