Tesla is officially in the robot-building business. Elon Musk confirmed that installation of the company’s first Optimus humanoid robot production line has begun at the Fremont, California factory, repurposing the space previously dedicated to assembling Model S and Model X vehicles.
Tesla is converting one of its most iconic production areas into a facility designed to produce humanoid robots at industrial scale. The target capacity for this first-generation line: 1 million Optimus units per year.
From luxury EVs to humanoid robots
The transition at Fremont follows announcements made during Tesla’s Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 earnings calls, where the company laid out its intention to wind down high-end vehicle production at the facility and redirect resources toward robotics manufacturing.
Low-volume production of Optimus robots is expected to begin by late July or August 2026, following the conclusion of Model S and Model X assembly. Musk has cautioned that initial output will be slow. The production line incorporates over 10,000 unique parts, which is the kind of complexity that tends to make early ramp-ups feel more like a crawl than a sprint.
