Tesla has begun what Elon Musk called “early production” of its Optimus humanoid robot on a high-volume line at its factory in Fremont, California. In its third-quarter update on 21 October, the company said “the bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured”, and that its process is “suitable for a commercial product”.
On the earnings call, Musk said most of the equipment for a line designed to make about a million robots a year had arrived, but warned the early ramp would be rocky. He expects it to take “at least a year, maybe a little longer” to reach that rate, roughly 20,000 robots a week. Tesla aims to start supplying Optimus to outside companies, at first for industrial work, around the end of 2027, and plans to fit its own AI5 chip, which Musk expects around April 2027.
The news came as Tesla reported third-quarter net income of $787m, down 43% on a year earlier.
Why it matters: humanoid robots have so far been built in small batches. A carmaker putting one on a mass-production line is a real test of whether cost and reliability can be solved at scale. The timelines are Tesla’s own, and earlier Optimus targets have slipped.
Source: Tesla Q3 2026 update