Tesla’s Happy Valentine’s Day video starring the company’s industrial robots had an intriguing detail that most of us missed: a frame of a car appears on screen that doesn’t correspond to any production vehicle Tesla makes. Autoevolution believes it could be the frame or other load-bearing structural part of the long-anticipated Cybertruck pickup.
It is unknown whether the company let it appear in the video by accident or on purpose. Either way, the robot carrying the part is named Joey 2000 and can lift more than 40,000 pounds at a time (over 18 metric tons).
The frame has a geometrically correct shape with niches for what could be the wheel arches and a large white trim at a side. It does look a bit like a truck base with a where the trim is and a bed at the opposite end.
The publication mentions that Joey 2000 was installed at the Tesla factory along with other Kuka robots in late 2022. The equipment was ordered for Cybertruck production.
Whether it was a hint that the assembly was starting or yet another vague promise is not something we are prepared to guess, though. Tesla had postponed the production way too many times already, with the latest estimation pointing towards ‘mid-2023’.
In addition to robots, Tesla showed its android named Optimus, In the vid, it carries parts around the facility and waters plants in a greenhouse. The company’s plans for the far future include making such robots for the mass market.