In the future plans actively promoted by Elon Musk, the Optimus humanoid robot is seen as a key link, and is even predicted to become a more important source of revenue than electric vehicles.The goal is to achieve an annual production volume of 2025 units by 5000. but,The Information websiteReports indicate that the actual production progress of the Optimus humanoid robot is currently far behind expectations, making the original production quantity target almost impossible to achieve.
Tesla has only produced a few hundred Optimus humanoid robots so far, and many of them are left idle in the factory due to the lack of complete hand and lower arm components. The problem mainly lies in the challenges in the design and assembly technology of the robotic arms, which has hampered the overall production progress.
In the second quarter financial results for fiscal year 2025 released recently, Tesla stated that its revenue reached US$225 billion, a decrease of 12% compared with the same period last year, the largest quarterly decline in nearly a decade, and its net profit decreased by 16% to US$11.7 billion. Elon Musk also revealed that it will continue to face challenges in the coming quarters, especially as US electric vehicle subsidies are gradually withdrawn and global market competition intensifies. Without a new growth engine, the overall operating pressure may further increase.
In further explanation, although Elon Musk did not directly state that there were difficulties in the production of the Optimus humanoid robot, he still emphasized that he had above-moderate confidence in the performance of this product in the next five years, but he could not guarantee its development in the next one or two years, which seemed to indirectly confirm that Optimus' development was facing a bottleneck.
The technical threshold has not been broken, and the design of the five-finger robot still needs to be optimized
At present, the main technical obstacles of Optimus are concentrated inHand structure designThe Information website reported that citing multiple insiders that developing a five-fingered robotic hand design that can simulate the flexibility of human hands is still a difficult challenge to overcome. Tesla hopes that Optimus' hands can handle fine movements from moving factory materials to playing the piano, but the current design still cannot achieve ideal performance.
However, the industry is divided on whether it is necessary to stick to the "humanoid" hand design. Some believe that there are already many more practical ways to grab objects with simple arms on the market, which can complete most tasks at a lower cost. Even some employees within Tesla believe that not every Optimus must be equipped with a five-fingered manipulator, especially when performing specific factory operations, robots do not necessarily need to be equipped with hands designed to imitate humans.
Senior management changes and litigation disputes cast a shadow on the project
In addition to technical difficulties, recent personnel and legal issues have also brought more variables to the Optimus project.
In June this year, the original engineering director in charge of the Optimus projectMilan KovacAfter leaving the company, Ashok Elluswamy, head of the AI team, took over. Tesla then filed a lawsuit against Proception, a company founded by a former employee, accusing it of stealing confidential technology related to Optimus. According to the lawsuit, billions of dollars of resources have been invested in the development of Optimus, which shows that Tesla regards it as a core asset for long-term layout in the future. Therefore, it also highlights Tesla's emphasis on the Optimus project and even invests huge R&D costs.
Progress made under confidentiality
Although Tesla continues to emphasize the application potential of Optimus, actual progress has been quite slow. Currently, there are about 50 Optimus robots being tested at the Palo Alto R&D center in California, USA. These robots will perform tasks such as walking and grasping under human supervision, but there is still some distance to large-scale actual deployment.
Although Elon Musk once estimated that Optimus will push Tesla's market value to $2 trillion in the future, 26 times its current market value, the market has begun to doubt these optimistic expectations in the face of weak electric vehicle sales and slow progress in robot research and development.
