cleaning
Factory material handling and sorting
Controlled demoVerified July 2026
- Control mode
- Mixed / assisted
- Human intervention
- Not disclosed; company videos show autonomous sorting, events have used teleoperation
Research record R-043Prototype
Optimus
By Tesla · United States · announced August 2021
The most famous humanoid in the world and one of the least purchasable: still a prototype, with a history of undisclosed teleoperation at public events.
Broader research scope
This is a research record, not a curated recommendation.
The main field guide selects 14 companion robots for deeper review. This entry belongs to a separate 53-record index that also covers industrial, research, and developer systems.
Research summary
What the record says.
Tesla announced Optimus in August 2021 with a dancer in a robot suit, and has since shown steadily improving hardware: Gen 1 in 2022, the far more refined Gen 2 in December 2023, and a third generation whose public reveal, as of July 2026, has been postponed to late summer 2026. Elon Musk has repeatedly called Optimus potentially the most valuable product Tesla will ever make, with a long-run price target of $20,000 to $30,000.
The gap between projection and delivery is wider here than anywhere else in the database. Tesla's January 2025 goal of building roughly 10,000 robots that year was missed entirely. In May 2026 the Fremont Model S and X line began conversion to Optimus manufacturing, with production slated to start around August 2026 and Musk describing 2026 output as 'quite slow' and impossible to predict.
No customer, business or consumer, has ever received an Optimus. Deployment consists of robots inside Tesla facilities and staged public appearances.
Delivery evidence
Announcement is not arrival.
Not demonstrated
None. No external customer has received a unit; internal factory use only
Reality check
Optimus has twice been documented performing 'autonomously' in public while humans controlled it. Bloomberg confirmed that the bartending and conversing robots at the October 2024 Cybercab event were remotely operated, which was not disclosed on stage. At the Tesla Diner in July 2025, the popcorn-serving Optimus was teleoperated from about nine meters away and stopped working when Wi-Fi congestion cut the operator's connection.
Tesla has real robotics and AI capability, and Optimus hardware iterations show genuine progress in hands, walking and cost engineering. But as of July 2026 there is no published evidence of Optimus performing sustained useful work autonomously, and nothing approaching Figure's unedited long-horizon footage. Every Optimus claim on this page should be read with its evidence label.
Capability ledger
What has actually been shown?
4 material claims are separated by evidence setting and human involvement. The strongest recorded signal is Real-world demo; it does not automatically transfer to every row.
conversation
Voice conversation
Real-world demoVerified July 2026
- Control mode
- Teleoperated
- Human intervention
- Conversation at the Cybercab event was human-operated (Bloomberg)
entertainment
Dancing and crowd interaction
Real-world demoVerified July 2026
- Control mode
- Mixed / assisted
- Human intervention
- Choreographed routines autonomous per Tesla; interactive segments have used remote operators
remote presence
Remote human operation at public events
Real-world demoVerified July 2026
- Control mode
- Teleoperated
- Human intervention
- Documented teleoperation; disclosure practices criticized
Hardware record.
- Height
- 173 cm
- Weight
- 57 kg
- Locomotion
- Bipedal walking
- Payload
- About 20 kg (claimed)
- Runtime
- Not disclosed
- Charging
- Not disclosed
- Top speed
- Improved walking shown on Gen 2; figures not independently verified
- Degrees of freedom
- Gen 2: about 28 body DoF plus 11-DoF hands (company figures)
- Hands
- 11-DoF hands on Gen 2; 22-DoF hands shown for the next generation (claimed)
- Face / expression
- Featureless black faceplate; screen-free
- Sensors
- Camera-first sensing derived from Tesla's vehicle Autopilot stack, microphones and speakers
Software record.
- AI platform
- Tesla in-house neural networks leveraging vehicle AI infrastructure; Grok integration shown for voice
- Voice
- Conversational voice demonstrated at events, at least partly under remote operation
- Languages
- English demonstrated
- Visual recognition
- Vision-based navigation and manipulation (company demos)
- Memory
- Not disclosed
- Processing
- Onboard Tesla AI hardware
- Autonomous abilities
- Sorting, walking and factory material handling shown in company videos; no sustained autonomous work verified
- Teleoperation
- Documented at the 2024 Cybercab event and 2025 Tesla Diner without on-stage disclosure
- Software updates
- Not applicable; no customer fleet
- Developer access
- None
Who can see, hear, or take control?
Tesla has published no consumer privacy documentation for Optimus, which is consistent with there being no consumer product. Given Tesla's camera-first approach in vehicles and the documented use of remote operation at public events, teleoperation disclosure will be one of the first questions to ask when a real product ships.
- Recording storage
- Not disclosed
- Remote operation possible
- Yes
- Teleoperation disclosure
- Not disclosed at events where it occurred
- Camera / microphone controls
- Not disclosed
- Data deletion
- Not disclosed
- Account required
- Not applicable
- Emergency stop
- Not disclosed
- Children and pets
- Not disclosed
- Security updates
- Not applicable
Open questions
Disputed or unverified.
- Claims of 1,000+ Optimus units working in Tesla factories appear only on low-quality aggregator sites
- Reported $20,000-30,000 'launch pricing' statements from early 2026 could not be verified in a reputable outlet
Lifecycle record
Status history.
- Concept
Announced at AI Day with no hardware
- Prototype
First walking prototypes shown
- Prototype
Optimus Gen 2 revealed with improved hands and walking
- Public demonstration
Cybercab event robots later confirmed remotely operated
- Prototype
Fremont S/X line conversion to Optimus production begins; V3 reveal delayed to late summer 2026
Source register
4 linked sources.
These sources support the research record as a whole. Unlike the curated dossiers, this imported record does not yet map every claim to a stable source ID.