All vikisOptimus
Elon Musk announced Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus, at AI Day on Aug 19, 2021. As of Nov 9, 2026 Tesla has begun early production in Fremont but has delivered none to an outside customer; Musk now expects that toward the end of 2027.
As of Nov 9, 2026, no Optimus robot has been delivered to a customer outside Tesla. Tesla's Q3 2026 update says "Optimus production began in Fremont on our high-volume lines," in an "Early Ramp," and on the Oct 21, 2026 earnings call Musk said deliveries to customers are "likely to be towards the end of next year" (Motley Fool transcript). He announced the robot, then called the Tesla Bot, at Tesla AI Day on Aug 19, 2021, with a person in a robot suit on stage, saying "the Tesla Bot will be real" and that Tesla would "probably have a prototype sometime next year."
Status: Late. Last checked: Nov 9, 2026.
Quick facts
| Maker | Tesla |
| Announced | Aug 19, 2021, AI Day (Tesla) |
| Prototype | Sep 30, 2022 (Tesla) |
| Production | Began in Fremont by Oct 2026 (Q3 2026 update) |
| Outside sales | None yet; Musk expects late 2027 (transcript) |
| Price | None published; $20,000 to $30,000 eventually, he said on Oct 10, 2024 (CNBC) |
What he announced in 2021
At AI Day Musk described a robot 5 feet 8 inches tall, slow enough that "you can run away from it" at about five miles an hour, with a screen for a face, the eight cameras and the self-driving computer of Tesla's cars. Its job, he said, was to "eliminate dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks." He tied it to the car business: Tesla's cars were already "semi-sentient robots on wheels," so the same neural nets could go into a humanoid form. The announcement gave no price and no date beyond the prototype.
Price and delivery: the 2022 promises
The prototype came on time. At AI Day 2022 on Sep 30, 2022, an early development robot Tesla called Bumble C walked on stage, a second, Tesla-designed robot was brought out that "wasn't quite ready to walk," and Musk said Optimus would be made "in very high volume, probably ultimately millions of units," at a cost "probably less than $20,000 would be my guess."
In the questions at the end, asked when people could order one, he answered that someone could "probably receive an Optimus" within three to five years: Sep 2025 at the earliest, Sep 2027 at the latest.
The promises
| Promised | When he said it | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| A prototype in 2022 | Aug 19, 2021, AI Day | Shown on Sep 30, 2022 (Tesla) |
| Under $20,000 eventually; customers receive one in 3 to 5 years | Sep 30, 2022, AI Day 2022 | No sales as of Nov 9, 2026; first outside deliveries now expected late 2027 (Motley Fool) |
| Working in Tesla factories by the end of 2024, delivered to other companies in 2025 | Apr 2024, Q1 earnings call (Fortune) | Moved back three months later |
| "Over 1,000, or a few thousand" at work in Tesla in 2025 | Jun 13, 2024, shareholder meeting (CNBC) | "Not in usage in our factories in a material way," Jan 28, 2026 (Electrek) |
| Low production for Tesla in 2025, high production for others "hopefully" in 2026 | Jul 22, 2024, on X (Fortune) | No outside deliveries in 2026 (Electrek) |
| Eventually $20,000 to $30,000 | Oct 10, 2024, We, Robot (CNBC) | No price published |
| About 10,000 built in 2025 | Jan 2025, Q4 2024 earnings call (Electrek) | Not reached; Tesla gave no 2025 count |
| Gen 3 unveiled in Q1 2026; production before the end of 2026; 1 million a year eventually | Jan 28, 2026, Q4 2025 update | Production began in Fremont by Oct 2026 (Tesla); no Gen 3 reveal yet |
| 20,000 a week in "at least a year, maybe a little longer" | Oct 21, 2026, Q3 earnings call (Motley Fool) | Not yet due |
What happened since
- Apr to Jul 2024: In April Musk said Optimus would do useful work in Tesla's factories by the end of 2024 and reach other companies in 2025; on Jul 22 he moved that to internal use in 2025 and outside sales "hopefully" in 2026 (Fortune).
- Oct 10, 2024: At the We, Robot event in Burbank, Optimus robots walked among guests, danced, made drinks and chatted. TechCrunch, citing Bloomberg, reported that the robots walked on their own but that employees working remotely oversaw many of those interactions (TechCrunch).
- Nov 6, 2025: Shareholders approved a pay plan for Musk worth up to about $1 trillion in stock, one of whose operational goals is 1 million Optimus robots delivered (CNBC).
- Jan 28, 2026: Tesla's Q4 2025 update called Gen 3 "our first design meant for mass production," and Musk said on the call that Optimus was "still in the R&D phase" (Electrek). In 2026 Tesla ended the Model S and Model X to free their Fremont space for Optimus (TechCrunch), the same move it made for the Cybercab when it ended the Cybertruck in Texas.
- Apr 22, 2026: On the Q1 call Musk put the Gen 3 reveal at "probably middle of this year," gave no 2026 production target, and said output would start "quite slow" (Electrek). Electrek reported a second Optimus factory at Giga Texas planned to start around summer 2027.
- Sep 23, 2026: Teslarati, reporting Gen 3 renders found in Tesla's app, wrote that "No reveal date has been announced" (Teslarati).
- Oct 21, 2026: The Q3 2026 update reported production on the Fremont high-volume lines and said "the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product"; the capacity table lists California as "Early Ramp" and Texas as "Construction." On the call Musk said most of "a 1 million unit per line production line" had landed in Fremont, that the ramp "has a shallow slope and is somewhat bumpy," that Tesla's AI5 chip goes into Optimus in "approximately April of next year," and that Tesla may release an Optimus video "in a month or so" (Motley Fool). He also said Tesla needs "on the order of 10,000 or 20,000 bots" to gather training data, and Electrek reported that he named the hand as the main hardware problem (Electrek).
The status is Late, not Delivered: the prototype arrived as promised, and production has begun, but every date for robots at work in volume or in customers' hands has passed, and the robot is still officially coming.
We think
We think Tesla will not deliver an Optimus robot to an outside customer before Jan 2028. The late-2027 target depends on the AI5 chip arriving around Apr 2027, on hands Musk himself calls the hardest part, and on 10,000 to 20,000 robots being built first for training, and each earlier date for outside sales (2025, then 2026) passed.
Confidence: Possible. Check by: Jan 2028.
We expect Tesla to publish a video or hold an event showing the Gen 3 Optimus before the end of Q1 2027. Production is already running on that design, Musk promised a video "in a month or so" on Oct 21, 2026, and his stated reason for waiting, keeping the design from competitors until production, no longer applies.
Confidence: Likely. Check by: Mar 2027.
Sources
- Tesla AI Day 2021, Tesla on YouTube, Aug 19, 2021
- Tesla AI Day 2022, Tesla on YouTube, Sep 30, 2022
- Q3 2026 Update, Tesla, Oct 21, 2026
- Q4 2025 Update, Tesla, Jan 28, 2026
- Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript, The Motley Fool, Oct 22, 2026
- Tesla pushes Optimus deliveries to late 2027, says hands still a problem, Electrek, Oct 22, 2026
- Tesla Optimus Gen 3 shows off a cleaner, factory-ready design in new app discovery, Teslarati, Sep 23, 2026
- Tesla pushes Optimus V3 reveal later this year - again, Electrek, Apr 22, 2026
- Musk admits no Optimus robots are doing 'useful work' at Tesla, Electrek, Jan 28, 2026
- Tesla will stop making the Cybertruck in 2027, TechCrunch, Nov 6, 2026
- Tesla says shareholders approve Musk's $1 trillion pay plan, CNBC, Nov 6, 2025
- Tesla Optimus bots were controlled by humans during the 'We, Robot' event, TechCrunch, Oct 14, 2024
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Optimus robot: This will be the biggest product ever of any kind, CNBC, Oct 10, 2024
- Tesla's humanoid robots delayed, Fortune, Jul 23, 2024
- Elon Musk claims Optimus robots could make Tesla a $25 trillion company, CNBC, Jun 13, 2024
Moments
Tesla AI Day 2021
Tesla
Tesla AI Day 2022
Tesla
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