Optimus
About
About Optimus
Optimus is Tesla's bipedal humanoid programme for general-purpose physical work. The platform combines articulated hands, onboard vision and AI control with a human-scale body intended to perform material handling and repetitive tasks in Tesla factories.
Tesla continues to develop successive prototypes and training systems around the programme. Demonstrations establish specific learned tasks, while production scale, external orderability and general task autonomy remain separate milestones.
Operations
- Production Setup
Production started; early ramp - 2026-10-21 - Tesla reports the start of production-quality Optimus manufacturing in Fremont.
Source - Production Capacity
10 million Optimus robots/year long-term target - 2026-04-22 - Gigafactory Texas - United States - Tesla showed Gigafactory Texas Optimus factory preparation and described a second-generation line designed for long-term annual production capacity of 10 million robots. Korthos keeps this long-term target out of disclosed-pool share comparisons.
Source - Production Capacity
1 million Optimus robots/year - 2026-01-28 - Fremont Factory - United States - Tesla said Optimus production was planned before the end of 2026 and described eventual planned capacity of 1 million robots per year at the Fremont facility.
Source - Order / Commitment
roughly 10,000 Optimus robots targeted in 2025 - 2025-01-29 - United States - Musk told investors Tesla was aiming for roughly 10,000 Optimus robots built in 2025, while acknowledging the exact target might not be hit and that several thousand was the more practical near-term expectation.
Source - Production Capacity
roughly 12,000 robots/year line design - 2025-01-29 - United States - Musk said the current Optimus production line being designed was for roughly 1,000 units per month, equivalent to about 12,000 robots per year if annualized.
Source - Production Capacity
roughly 120,000 robots/year next line design - 2025-01-29 - United States - Musk described the next Optimus line as being on the order of 10,000 units per month, equivalent to about 120,000 robots per year if annualized.
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Deployments
- Internal Factory Use
0 Optimus units disclosed as doing useful factory work - 2026-01-28 - Tesla factories - factory learning and data collection - Asked about factory deployment, Musk said Optimus units were primarily for learning and data collection rather than performing productive tasks, making the useful-work evidence gap explicit after the 2025 build target.
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Resources
Media library
- Tesla Optimus product view
image · Tesla
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Timeline
- Tesla begins Optimus production on its Fremont high-volume lines
2026-10-21 - Production Milestone - Tesla describes the current output as its first production-quality robots and says design refinements continue. Tesla’s earnings call targets external deliveries by the end of 2027 while the production process ramps.
Source - Tesla Optimus audit reports draw mixed supplier responses
2026-09-18 - Market Signal - Tuopu said it had not received a new audit notice and noted that Tesla development personnel already worked at its Ningbo factory. Sanhua said it was developing robot joint actuators with a major customer but did not confirm a new audit; Joyson cited customer confidentiality.
Source - Tesla Optimus orders reported at roughly 5,000 units
2026-09-07 - Market Signal - The report connected the orders to commissioning of the Fremont robot body line in July and August and improving production yields. Reported supplier allocations depended on each company’s awarded share of the program.
Source - Tesla reports Fremont Optimus factory construction
2026-07-22 - Production Milestone - Initial robot builds were intended for the Optimus Academy to collect training data and develop functionality. Building construction at Gigafactory Texas was also ongoing; Tesla continued to anticipate production later in 2026.
Source - Tesla Optimus 3 supply claim names Mirle
2026-06-22 - Market Signal - Mirle, Kedali and Main Drive planned a Thailand venture to expand robot-component production. The venture ownership split was given as 51% Kedali, 39% Mirle and 10% Main Drive, using a site in Thailand’s Rayong province.
Source - Tesla targets summer 2026 Optimus 3 production start
2026-03-12 - Market Signal - The initial production line was planned for Fremont, with a longer-term design capacity of one million robots per year. A larger Texas line was described as a future expansion, potentially reaching ten million units per year alongside a later robot design.
Source - Tesla proposes Optimus Academy training program
2026-02-05 - Market Signal - The proposed academy would use at least 10,000 robots, potentially 20,000–30,000, for self-play and task testing. Musk paired that plan with millions of simulated robots and a reality-generation system to narrow simulation-to-hardware differences.
Source - Tesla prioritizes Optimus production preparations
2026-01-28 - Market Signal - Gen 3 was described as the first Optimus design intended for mass production, with a new hand design planned for its unveiling. Tesla targeted production before the end of 2026 and eventual first-line capacity of one million robots per year.
Source - Tesla begins site preparation for Optimus plant at Giga Texas
2025-11-10 - Production Milestone - Tesla had described a long-term Texas production target of ten million Optimus units per year, with production planned for 2027. The Texas project was separate from the Fremont pilot line and its proposed one-million-unit annual scale.
Source - Tesla Optimus engineering leader Milan Kovac leaves
2025-06-06 - Org Change - He cited the need to spend more time with family abroad and said his support for Tesla remained unchanged. Kovac helped lead Optimus from 2022 and became its vice president in late 2024; Bloomberg reported that AI software vice president Ashok Elluswamy would take over.
Source - Tesla outlines Robotaxi and Optimus pilot-production plans
2025-04-22 - Market Signal - The company targeted a Robotaxi pilot in Austin by June and Optimus builds on the Fremont pilot production line during 2025. The update also reported unsupervised vehicle movement from production lines to outbound logistics lots at U.S. factories.
Source - Tesla targets up to 10,000 Optimus builds in 2025
2025-01-31 - Market Signal - The planned robots were intended to perform useful work within Tesla before sales to other companies. Musk described successive production-line designs targeting 1,000 and then 10,000 robots per month.
Source - Tesla demonstrates upgraded Optimus hand by teleoperation
2024-11-28 - Demonstration - Tesla engineer Julian Ibarz confirmed the demonstration was teleoperated and described more motors and degrees of freedom in a slim forearm. An upgraded hand had previously appeared as a standalone display at October’s We, Robot event.
Source - Tesla demonstrates Optimus at We, Robot
2024-10-10 - Demonstration - The presentation included dancing, drink service, games and conversations with attendees. Contemporaneous reporting distinguished autonomous walking from human-assisted interactions, including remotely controlled speech and gestures.
Source - Tesla targets internal Optimus use in 2025
2024-07-22 - Market Signal - Musk’s July 22 statement described a later high-production phase for other companies in 2026. The program followed a 2022 prototype presentation in which Tesla showed walking and controlled factory-task videos.
Source - Tesla unveils Optimus Gen 2 prototype
2023-12-12 - Product Launch - Tesla claimed 30% faster walking and a 10 kg weight reduction compared with the earlier prototype. The robot used Tesla-designed actuators and sensors; the demonstration showed a squat while maintaining balance.
Source - Tesla demonstrates Optimus autonomous object sorting
2023-09-23 - Demonstration - Tesla described end-to-end training that mapped video input directly to robot controls. The same update showed a prototype balancing on one foot during a yoga-like movement.
Source - Tesla presents Optimus prototypes at AI Day 2022
2022-09-30 - Demonstration - The earlier Bumble C prototype used partly off-the-shelf actuators and walked across the stage; videos also showed controlled task trials. The newer Tesla-built prototype used in-house actuators, battery and power electronics, but had to be carried onto the stage because it could not yet walk.
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Context
Market context
Optimus is Tesla's general-purpose humanoid robot for repetitive, labor-intensive tasks across industrial and future domestic environments.
- Target environment: Tesla factories, structured industrial settings and future controlled environments where repetitive tasks can be automated.
- Workflow context: Factory task execution, material movement, manipulation, AI training, manufacturing integration and future home assistance.
- Customer context: Tesla internal operations, industrial partners and future customers evaluating humanoid labor automation.
- Deployment model: Development-stage humanoid program drawing on Tesla's AI, autonomy and manufacturing stack.
- Commercial maturity: Highly visible development program with internal factory-use focus and no broad external commercial rollout.
- Adoption constraints: Adoption depends on manipulation, autonomy, safety, manufacturing cost, fleet support, reliability and task economics.
- Market position: Vertically integrated humanoid program with unusual access to automotive-scale AI, manufacturing and factory deployment infrastructure.
- Adjacent products: Figure 03, Apptronik Apollo, Agility Digit, Sanctuary Phoenix