A Bottimus from Tesla in Playing Dooring the World Conference of AI 2024 and a high -level meeting on the Global Government of AI at the Shanghai World Convention and Exhibition Center on July 7, 2024.
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Tesla The CEO Elon Musk says that China’s new commercial restrictions in rare earth magnets have affected the production of the company’s humanoid robots, which depend on exports.
Speaking in a Tesla profits call on Tuesday, Musk said the company was working on the problem with Beijing and hoped to get an approach to access critical resources.
China, earlier this month, imposed new export controls in seven elements and rare earth magnets used in everything, from defense to energy to automotive technologies. The measure was in retaliation for the growing tariffs of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
According to Musk, Beijing has asked Tesla to guarantee that rare earthly controls under expert control will not be used for military purposes.
“China wants some guarantees that these are for military purposes, which are obviously not. They are simply entering a humanoid robot,” he said.
The new restrictions, which have increased the risk of global shortage, require exporters of medium and heavy rare earths in question to receive licenses from the Ministry of Commerce of China.
China dominates the market of many of these rare earths, with the United States without improvising to fill a possible deficit, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has In possible new tariffs on all American imports of critical minerals in response to China’s export controls.
Future growth at risk?
Duration The gain call on Tuesday, Musk emphasized the importance of humanoid robots for the future plans of the company.
“The company’s future is based primarily on large -scale large -scale autonomous cars, large volume and fixed numbers of autonomous humanoid robots,” he said.
Previously, Musk had announced plans for Optimus to produce around 5,000 units this year as technology grows as part of Tesla’s future commercial plans. Moreover, said Tesla would deploy robots in their EV factories.
It is not clear to what extent export controls could alter thesis plans. However, Musk assured investors on Tuesday that the company still plans to produce thousands of robots this year, and thousands also hoped to be deployed in Tesla factories.
Emerging technology could help Tesla promote investors optimism as their EV business, with their shares at 37% in the year to date.
Steve Westly, founder and managing partner of the Westly Group and former member of the Tesla Board, said Tuesday ‘Closing Bell Fill’ of CNBC that the company needs to find a new growth engine soon.
The company is expected to face a tough competition from other humanoid robots in China, such as Unitree Robotics and Agibot, which supposedly plan to enter mass production this year. Export controls could give Chinese players another advantage over their US competitors, according to some analysts.
While Musk is optimistic about Tesla’s prospects in space, claiming that it is ahead of the competition, he is concerned that the classification table is full of Chinese companies.