A new Tesla patent application has been published publicly today for a 3D tactile touch sensor for a humanoid robot.
These sensors could allow Optimus to detect touch, pressure, and force across different parts of its hands, improving its ability to grip and manipulate objects.
The patent says: "The separator layer can comprise a dielectric or piezoresistive material. The 3D tactile sensors can conform to curved geometries and can be used for measuring surface force, touch, and pressure. For example, the 3D tactile sensors described herein can be used in fingertips, palms, end-effectors, or other portions of a robot enabling the robot to sense the world around it. The sensors may be defined using flexible or formable material, such as thermoplastic, and can support resistive or capacitive sensing.
The 3D tactile sensors described herein can be manufactured using a variety of approaches. One example approach involves defining an array of sensing elements in a substrate material using screen printing or substrate etching. Additional approaches involve the use of 3D dispensing (e.g., 3D printing) tech-niques, pad printing techniques, or electroplating tech-niques. The substrate may be formed to a target 3D geometry using thermoforming, injection molding, or compression molding, among any other suitable techniques."
This patent was originally filed in Sept 2025. Tesla may or may not end up using this technology in Optimus: https://t.co/xp0c1VDiKx
THIS IS F*CKING INSANE... I already tested the Grok update Elon is talking about, paired it with OPENAI DOTS, and it built a $100k system
the update sounds small: Grok stops being one model and routes each task to whatever's best, Opus 5.5 included
the part nobody's talking about is what happens when you give that router a team
i plugged in 4 Dots and the whole thing turned into a 14-second meeting:
โ Grok reads the task and hands the chair to Opus 5.5
โOpus asks each dot what it knows: one reads the research, one the code, one the user data, one runs the tests
โ they disagree out loud, then vote. majority wins, no egos in the room
โ Claude Code writes the change, tests run, whatever breaks gets fixed before anyone moves on
โ last vote: ship or not. if it passes, it becomes a pull request and waits for a human
they communicate better than most human teams. nobody defends their own idea, nobody waits for next week's sync, nobody says "let's take this offline"
in my run they cut a sign-up form from 9 fields to 3. my whole job was one click: approve
a human team spends 14 seconds asking "can everyone hear me?"
Musk gave Grok the best brains. the money is in making them hold the meeting
@DHPat@nicksortor ngl the construction noise drowning out marine one while melaniaโs over it is the most normal white house moment iโve seen in years