Ex-Tesla Optimus scientist unveils European humanoid robot startup

This one is outside the usual scope of energy upgrades for your home, but here's the gist. A former Tesla engineer who worked on the company's Optimus humanoid robot has started a new robotics company in Paris called UMA, short for Universal Mechanical Assistant. The founder, Rémi Cadène, left Tesla in early 2024 and later worked at Hugging Face, an AI platform, before launching UMA with three co-founders. The company has venture funding along with backing from AI figures including Yann LeCun and Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf.

UMA's robot, called Northstar, is aimed at factories and warehouses in Europe first, with an eventual goal of reaching homes. The company points to Europe's aging workforce and high labor costs as reasons demand could grow there. It says it is talking with 50 potential customers and hopes to start industrial pilot programs this year, though it has no product shipping yet. Other companies are further along: Tesla has not put Optimus to real work yet, but Figure's robots are already running shifts at a BMW plant, and Boston Dynamics has a partnership with Hyundai.

For homeowners, there is no direct impact here yet. Home use of humanoid robots, if it happens, is described as a longer-term goal rather than something on the market now.