April 24, 2011 (Newswire.com)Tesla In the first quarter 2025 update, the company showed for the first time the Optimus Humanoid RobotPilot production line. Tesla said the production schedule for Optimus remains unchanged and the company is on track to produce the first humanoid robots capable of doing useful work as soon as possible.
Tesla's Optimus pilot line is located at the Fremont factory, which is where many of Tesla's programs begin, according to 1AI. The company hopes to expand the deployment of Optimus robots to more of its factories by the end of the year.
During Tesla's Q1 earnings call, Elon Musk shared an update on the Optimus program, "We're making good progress on Optimus.We expect thousands of Optimus robots to be in use at Tesla factories by the end of the year. We also plan to scale up production of Optimus at a faster rate than any product in our history, with the goal of reaching production of millions of units per year in as short a time as possible. I am confident that we will achieve our goal of producing one million units per year in less than five, or perhaps even four years."
However, Musk also noted thatTesla's Optimus production is still in the "development phase".. He made it clear that Tesla won't go into mass production right away, but will instead focus on producing a few thousand Optimus robots by the end of the year.
Musk further explained, "Almost all of the components in Optimus are brand new. There is no off-the-shelf supply chain for motors, gearboxes, electronics, actuators, and almost all other components, except for the same AI computers used in Tesla cars. For a brand new, complex manufactured product, the speed of production will depend on the slowest and least smooth parts of the entire product."
In addition, Tesla is currently working with China toto obtain a license to use rare earth permanent magnetsThese permanent magnets will be used in the production of Optimus robots. The move comes after China's Ministry of Commerce imposed restrictions on exports of rare earth elements and permanent magnets in response to tariffs imposed on Chinese products by the US Trump administration.
We are in communication with China to get permission to use rare earth permanent magnets," Musk said. China wants assurances that these permanent magnets will not be used for military purposes. Obviously, they won't. They're just for humanoid robots, not weapons systems."
He also mentioned that while Tesla as a whole doesn't need to use permanent magnets, they are used in components like robot arms that have strict size constraints and are designed to minimize the size of the motors, which are impacted by the supply chain.