Tesla Put Optimus Into Production on a Line Built for a Million Robots a Year. Musk Says the Hands Aren't Finished, the Brain Isn't Ready, and Customers Wait Until Late 2027
About This Episode
On Tesla's Q3 earnings call Wednesday, October 21, Elon Musk said Optimus has entered early production on the Fremont high-volume line where the Model S and X were built, and Tesla's shareholder letter calls them the first production-quality bots it has made. Musk then listed what still doesn't work: the hands, durability, and the AI, and said 20,000 a week is at least a year off, with outside deliveries around the end of 2027. The robots coming off the line will go to an internal 'Optimus Academy' to practice tasks, because Tesla has no fleet to learn from.
Our Take
Tesla has finished the body factory before the robot's mind is ready: a million-unit line is stamping out 'production-quality' humanoids whose hands, durability and AI their own CEO says are unsolved, so the first robots off the line are going to school, not to work, and the night-shift jobs Musk named get their robot no sooner than late 2027.
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