Tesla raises Optimus output tenfold to several hundred units a week, but the hands remain the bottleneck

Tesla has increased production of its Optimus humanoid robot roughly tenfold in recent months, The Information reported on September 25, 2026. Weekly output grew from a few dozen units in the second quarter of the year to several hundred units today.

Ten times more, but a much larger target

Even at that pace Tesla remains far from its stated goal of building 1,000 robots a week by the end of the year, and further still from an eventual target of 20,000 units a week. According to the report, three obstacles stand in the way: the intricate mechanical complexity of the robot's hands, constraints among suppliers, and failures of automated equipment on the line.

Assembling the hands is the most demanding part of the process. Reproducing human-like dexterity at volume calls for parts and tolerances far tighter than those on Tesla's car lines.

What Optimus V3 can do

The model now being built at the Fremont factory, Optimus V3, has a lighter chassis, upgraded camera arrays and a more human-like appearance than earlier versions. Its AI was trained on more than 500,000 hours of real-world data. Even so, the robots handle only tightly programmed, specific tasks in supervised testing zones in Palo Alto and on factory floors; they do not yet work autonomously as general-purpose machines.

Leasing instead of selling

Because V3 is not the final consumer version and still needs major durability improvements, Tesla plans a tightly controlled commercial rollout. Early commercial units will be leased rather than sold, and only to customers whose warehouse environments mirror Tesla's own. That arrangement lets Tesla retrieve the hardware for mechanical upgrades while continuing to harvest factory data to refine the AI.

Elon Musk keeps describing Optimus as Tesla's most important product. He has said full commercial sales could begin by late 2027, provided the company can solve the manufacturing problems described in the report.