Tesla is currently facing significant challenges in pivoting from electric cars to humanoid robots. Complex robot hands and disgruntled employees pushing back against training their robotic replacements are slowing progress. CEO Elon Musk has bet the company's future on AI and robotics, describing the Optimus humanoid robot as potentially the biggest product ever during Tesla's second-quarter 2026 earnings call. He also acknowledged that making an autonomous humanoid robot capable of handling many different tasks is one of the hardest things to solve.
Extensive reporting by The Information revealed multiple complications as Tesla develops general-purpose robots and scales up for mass production. Tesla's Fremont factory in California stopped making the Model S sedan and Model X SUV as of May 2026. The company shifted both line workers and engineers over to working on Optimus.
The newest version of Optimus, called Optimus V3, has proven challenging from a development and manufacturing standpoint. The Information described troubles with getting production line equipment to precisely line up components, along with limitations in running the production line too fast. Tesla has scaled up production to hundreds of robots per week and targets production numbers surpassing 1,000 robots per week by the end of 2026.
Read nextOpenAI Pauses Training of Its Most Powerful Models After Sandbox IncidentMaking robotic hands capable of doing delicate manipulation tasks on par with human hands remains a huge engineering challenge. Human workers must manually assemble Optimus hands and forearms that together feature more than 100 small components such as screws. This imperfect manufacturing process produces robots that require immediate fixes. Touch sensors for the robot's hands have also proven unreliable, leading Tesla to develop a glove-like layer of sensors that can be replaced without replacing the entire robot hand.
The robot's artificial intelligence capabilities are reportedly still insufficient for general-purpose operations. Tesla's Optimus robots currently require programming to do specific tasks in carefully controlled environments. Getting enough training data to help robots visually learn a wide variety of manual tasks is a major industry hurdle. Tesla previously had factory workers in Texas and California wear special suits designed to record their physical movements while working.
Some workers complained because they knew the robots were designed to eventually replace them. Tesla has since shifted data collection responsibility to dedicated teams and established training hubs for those teams. Tesla also continues to rely on Chinese suppliers to make various robot components. This reliance persists despite the Trump administration trying to boost domestic supply chains. In July, the Federal Communications Commission banned new foreign-made robots such as humanoid robots, four-legged robot dogs, and robot vacuum cleaners.
Tesla faces stiff competition as automakers in China, Japan, and South Korea develop humanoid robots alongside dedicated robotics companies. Toyota plans to invest billions of dollars in upgrading factories with robots, including some humanoids. Hyundai plans to deploy up to 25,000 Atlas humanoid robots developed by US subsidiary Boston Dynamics over the next several years. Oregon-based Agility Robotics put humanoid robots to work at an Atlanta-area warehouse owned by GXO Logistics in 2024. The overall business case for humanoid robots still needs to be proven through sustained deployments and safety demonstrations.
Tesla aims to achieve a production rate of 1,000 Optimus robots per week by the end of 2026.
