By Hyunjoo Jin
(Reuters) -Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned on Tuesday that the manufacturing of its Optimus humanoid robots had been affected by China’s export restrictions of uncommon earth magnets.
He mentioned China desires assurances that its uncommon earth magnets aren’t used for army functions, including that the automaker is working with Beijing to get an export license to make use of uncommon earth magnets.
“China desires some assurances that these aren’t used for army functions, which clearly they are not. They’re simply going right into a humanoid robotic,” he mentioned throughout an earnings convention name, including that it is not a weapon.
This month, China positioned export restrictions on uncommon earths as a part of its sweeping response to U.S. tariffs, limiting the availability of minerals used to make weapons, electronics and a spread of client items.
The export curbs embrace not solely mined minerals however magnets and different completed merchandise that will probably be troublesome to switch, analysts mentioned.
Exporters should now apply to the Ministry of Commerce for licenses, a comparatively opaque course of that may vary from six or seven weeks to a number of months.
Musk has mentioned he anticipated Tesla to make 1000’s of Optimus robots this 12 months.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin. Modifying by Gerry Doyle)
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