United States · Development · 
Summary
Optimus is Tesla's humanoid robot program for general-purpose physical work, developed for bipedal mobility, dexterous hands and AI control for factory/logistics tasks.
Identity
Status
Development
Category
Humanoid
Type
Humanoid
Function
Handle objects
Audience
Manufacturers
Performance
HAND DOF
11
NECK DOF
2
Systems
ACTUATION
Tesla-designed actuators/sensors
Other
SENSORS
tactile sensing on all fingers, foot force/torque
Recent gen
30% walk speed boost, 10kg weight reduction
Video
Capabilities
CLAIMED (12 Dec 2023) — Object manipulation: demonstration showed more stable whole-body motion and finer object handling, including egg handling and squat movement.
Degrees of freedom — ranked across 89 Humanoid platforms · this robot ranks #89
Comparable systems — same status tier
Context & Benchmark
Comparable systems: IRON (XPeng), Pudu D9 (Pudu Robotics), Vanar Gen1 (Vanar Robots), Kepler K2 (Kepler Robotics), 4NE1 (Neura Robotics), TLIBOT (Sichuan Tianlian). Related systems: HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal (Humanoid), Phoenix (Sanctuary AI), AEON (Hexagon), MagicBot Z1 (MagicLab), AGIBOT A2 (AgiBot), Haribit (Haribit).
Timeline
CAPABILITY (29 Nov 2024) — 'Elon Musk: Tesla achieves human-level dexterity with robot hands': video showed Optimus catching a tennis ball in mid-air, repeating the feat; Tesla VP Milan Kovac clarified the reality was more complicated — a human worked behind the scenes to guide Optimus through its paces, similar to when Tesla's robots mixed drinks earlier that fall.
Resources
Image: Tesla Optimus product view (official Tesla product image). Documents: 'Tesla Optimus AI and robotics overview' (OFFICIAL spec sheet, web format, balance/navigation/perception/physical-interaction software stack).
Deployments
DEPLOYMENT COUNT (28 Jan 2026) — Tesla factories: 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. Environment: United States. Product/scope: Tesla internal factories.
Operations
PRODUCTION CAPACITY / CAPACITY EXPANSION (22 Apr 2026): Tesla showed Gigafactory Texas Optimus factory preparation and described a second-generation line designed for long-term annual production capacity of 10 million robots ( keeps this long-term target out of disclosed-pool share comparisons). Metric: 10 million Optimus robots/year long-term target. Scope: Gigafactory Texas second-generation Optimus line. Facility: Gigafactory Texas. Geography: United States.