Tesla Reveals Optimus Timeline: Fremont Production Line with Annual Capacity of One Million Units Has Begun Production, External Deliveries Possible by End of Next Year

After the U.S. market closed on October 21 Eastern Time, Tesla released its third-quarter 2026 earnings report. The company's third-quarter revenue was $28.05 billion, flat year over year; total gross profit was $5.494 billion, up 9% year over year. Tesla's operations remain under pressure. In the third quarter of this year, the company's GAAP net income was $787 million, down 43% year over year; operating profit was $718 million, down 56% year over year. On the expense side, Tesla's operating expenses reached $4.776 billion, up 39% year over year, of which R&D expenses reached $2.761 billion. In terms of revenue structure, the automotive business remains Tesla's main source of revenue, with third-quarter revenue of $20.56 billion, down 3% year over year; other businesses also include energy generation and storage revenue, services and other revenue, etc. Optimus is at a critical stage of moving from R&D to mass production. Tesla said in its earnings report: "Optimus began production on the high-volume production line at the Fremont factory. The robots coming off this line are the first mass-production-quality robots we have manufactured. Although we will continue to iterate on hardware and manufacturing processes, we have proven that Optimus's current manufacturing process is suitable for commercial products." It is understood that the dedicated humanoid robot production line at the Fremont factory in California is planned to have an annual capacity of 1 million units. At the same time, Tesla is preparing a second robot production line at its Texas Gigafactory, with a long-term design annual capacity of 10 million units. During this earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also responded to the specific progress of the humanoid robot. "Most of the production line with an annual capacity of 1 million units has already been implemented at the Fremont factory, but it will take at least a year or longer to reach the annual production rate, reaching 20,000 units per week," Musk said. Because it needs to deliver safe, reliable robots with a long service life, some of Optimus's design is still changing, and there is still a lot of work to do in AI to ensure the robot is truly useful in open-ended tasks. He expects these issues to be resolved around the end of next year, which may be when they deliver Optimus to companies other than Tesla. Regarding the previous use of Optimus robots in the "Optimus Academy," Musk also revealed more information. He mentioned that, unlike cars, Optimus does not have a huge fleet of vehicles to collect training data. In order for Optimus to obtain training data, a large number of Optimuses need to be manufactured, and the Optimus Academy can let the robots practice performing a wide range of tasks. According to Tesla executives attending the meeting, the team is building a reinforcement learning loop. Optimus first completes initial basic training with human data, and then conducts extensive self-play in simulation and the real world. Musk also added that Tesla is preparing to release a video of Optimus, which will take about one or two months. He said, "In the video, what Optimus does is not pre-programmed, and there will be a demonstration that makes you believe 'what you see is what you get.'" It is understood that since the prototype was unveiled, Tesla has rarely shown the robot performing operational tasks. Optimus will also be equipped with Tesla's AI5 chip around April next year. According to the introduction, AI5's computing power is about an order of magnitude higher than AI4, which will improve the robot's processing capability. It is worth noting that Tesla did not further discuss the potential possibility of a merger with SpaceX on this earnings call. The day before, Musk said that SpaceX and Tesla had established a special committee. But he also emphasized that the merger is not a done deal and still requires shareholder support. After the U.S. market closed on October 21 Eastern Time, both SpaceX and Tesla shares fell, with Tesla down more than 3%.