Tesla's Fremont line now makes 20,000 robots a week

Tesla's Fremont factory will soon produce 20,000 Optimus robots every week, according to Elon Musk. The company stated in its third quarter shareholder letter that the units coming off the line are the first to meet the standard for a commercial product. Tesla confirmed that the current manufacturing process is suitable for real-world use.

The production line occupies the space where Model S and Model X vehicles were previously built. Tesla cleared the old vehicle equipment in 46 days this spring to make room for the robot assembly. The facility is designed to handle one million units annually, and most of the necessary equipment is already in place.

Musk described the production increase as a gradual process. He noted on Wednesday's earnings call that the initial growth curve is shallow. The engineering team is currently working on the robot's artificial intelligence, electromechanical design, and reliability. Tesla expects to finish this work by the end of next year, at which point it plans to deliver Optimus units to outside companies for hazardous and repetitive tasks.

A unique challenge for Tesla is that it does not have a large fleet of Optimus robots to gather training data. Unlike its cars, which send driving data from millions of vehicles, the robots are new to the market. Tesla created a solution called the Optimus Academy to address this gap.

The Academy will use 10,000 to 20,000 robots to practice a wide range of tasks. These machines will feed their performance data into the next version of the AI model. Every unit produced on the Fremont line becomes a source of information for this training process.

Tesla also plans to upgrade the hardware with its AI5 chip next year. Musk said a new video showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI, rather than preprogrammed motions, should appear within one or two months. He criticized rival humanoid robot demonstrations for relying on scripted routines that may not work in real-world conditions.