The Tesla Diner - More than just an Elon Musk novelty project
How the newly launched Diner will be a test bed for the future of Tesla, their reputation and the coming Optimus Humanoid Robot.
It’s no secret that Tesla’s reputation has taken a few dings and scrapes over the last years, in no small part due to Musk & Trump’s ridiculous kind of situation-ship that was always going to end in tears. So it’s no wonder that Musk gave the go ahead for a silly, Tesla themed, over-the-top, retro futuristic burger joint in Hollywood, Los Angeles. At first glance this seems like a much needed serving of positive PR, but looking a little closer there is more to the Tesla Diner than just novelty burgers and charging ports.
At face value, it's an old school drive-in diner with a Blade Runner-meets-Route-66 aesthetic. You park your Tesla, plug it in, and grab a burger while watching movie clips or a TV show on a massive outdoor screen. Atleast that’s the theory, a week into the launch of the Hollywood Tesla Diner and it’s still getting multi-hour lines around the block from eager fans and curious locals.
Inside the retro-futuristic vibe continues, with a dining area that looks more suited to the sets of 2001: A Space Odyssey or the world of Cyberpunk than a burger joint in the the real world. Eventually you work your way up the stairs, past the prototype Optimus bot displays and the SpaceX style bathrooms, to the roof terrace bar and seating area. Straight out of the movies into real life the Hollywood location seems most appropriate. And let’s not forget the prototype Optimus bot serving popcorn upstairs!
Given the overwhelmingly positive reception of the Tesla Diner, Musk has already stated that they will be establishing further Diner locations around the world. These aren’t just showpieces, they’re seeds, Tesla-branded lifestyle outposts, reputational beachheads. Tesla is a changing company, with the imminent launch of Robotaxi, more and more people everyday will be expected to interact with the Tesla brand. A chain of fun Jetsons-esque restaurants might just be good ice breakers for the Tesla skeptics out there.
But it’s the other part of Elon’s tweet that really tip’s Teslas hand as to what the Diners are all about, their intention to have them on long distance routes, out far from civilisation. This is a clear indicator that it’s Tesla’s goal to fully staff these Tesla Diners with Optimus bots, in places where staffing would be extremely difficult. This bring us to the real purpose of the Tesla Diner. It’s a real world AI training lab.
Tesla’s long term bet isn’t in car manufacturing, it’s in everything needed to bring real world AI to fruition, the kind that doesn’t just play chess or generate cat pictures, but actually gets up, walks across the room, and clears your table.
First, Tesla is on the cusp of delivering a generalised solution to self driving, unlocking a multi trillion dollar robotaxi opportunity, trials and limited service beginning in Austin and California with more locations expected. Secondly, with the Optimus bot, Tesla (along with a raft of competitors) is opening the door intelligent humanoid robotics. Intelligent enough to move safely through our world and complete tasks without the need for human piloting or oversight. Tesla claims Optimus will one day be mass-produced at scale, at low cost, and deployed into households and businesses around the world.
Think of Tesla Diner as Optimus’ kindergarten. As the Car’s learned to self drive based on millions of hours of watching humans driving Tesla’s, so will Optimus. Right now Optimus learns through “tele-operation”, the process of having a human pilot the optimus robot through various tasks teaching it in the process. The Optimus bot serving popcorn at the Hollywood location is almost certainly being human piloted but how long before it’s not? Soon i expect.
From wiping down tables, to handing off food trays, to collecting trash, every inch of the diner is a use-case waiting to be learned. It’s the perfect sandbox. Structured tasks, consistent lighting, human interaction, and enough cameras to train a fleet of neural networks. Likely human staff will begin wearing data collection devices, glasses or bodycams, for the various restaurant tasks, this data will be labelled and fed back into the Optimus training data. AI is a data game, one that Tesla has been keen to stay ahead of the pack on.
Crucially, it’s also a public environment. It gets people used to the idea of bots moving through physical space. Tesla doesn’t just want to build robots, they need the public to stop flinching when one walks past their booth holding a basket of fries. Make no mistake the public will be trained just as much as the bot is.
Optimus equipped establishments unlock a new kind of scalability. Suddenly, remote or low-footfall locations become economically viable. Remember Musks comment about having Tesla diners on long distance routes. You don’t need a full staff of humans, just one or two people to supervise a team of bots, likely remotely. Operating costs will plummet.
Of course, there’s a darker side. If Tesla can make these establishments run with minimal human input, it’s only a matter of time before competitors are forced to follow, or perish. How does a traditional diner compete with one that doesn’t pay wages, take breaks, or go on strike?
It may be that Tesla and Optimus are so disruptive that Tesla may have to vertically integrate all kind of lifestyle businesses under the Tesla umbrella. Diners, Hotels, Gyms, Coffee shops, Bars, Leisure Centers. From this one novelty Tesla Diner location it’s possible to imagine a whole new aspect to Tesla powered by the Optimus robot. Whether anything more comes to fruition only time will tell, but Tesla will be looking for any opportunity to gather real world data suitable for training Humanoid Robots.
Time will tell.