Tesla begins Optimus robot production in Fremont as quarterly profit falls 43%

Tesla starts Optimus production at Fremont

Tesla has begun manufacturing its Optimus humanoid robot at its factory in Fremont, California, in a section of the plant that previously built electric vehicles, the company announced Wednesday in its third-quarter shareholder letter. According to TechCrunch, Tesla said the robots now coming off the line are the first it has manufactured to production quality, and that while the hardware and manufacturing process will keep being refined, the current process is suitable for a commercial product.

The announcement landed alongside Tesla's third-quarter earnings, which showed a company absorbing heavy spending on its AI and robotics bets.

Musk calls it "early production"

Speaking on the quarterly conference call, CEO Elon Musk framed the Fremont line as a starting point rather than a finished ramp. He described the effort as early production and cautioned that scaling up will be slow and "somewhat bumpy" because Optimus is a radically new product, TechCrunch reports.

Musk nonetheless set a striking target, claiming Tesla will be able to build 20,000 Optimus robots per week by the end of 2027. He also acknowledged that the design still needs work — the robot has to be safe, reliable and durable enough that it does not wear out after a month — and that considerable AI development remains before Optimus can be truly useful for open-ended tasks.

A flat quarter with a 43% profit drop

The robotics milestone could not lift Tesla's financial results. According to TechCrunch, the company posted third-quarter revenue of $28.04 billion, marginally below both the $28.09 billion from the same quarter a year earlier and the $28.23 billion from the previous quarter.

Vehicle deliveries reached 486,532, about 6,000 more than in the prior quarter but below the year-ago figure, while automotive revenue held flat year over year at $20 billion. Tesla's solar and energy storage business fell 16% to $2.8 billion, which the company attributed to tariff-related customer refunds.

The brightest spot was services, a segment that includes subscriptions to Tesla's Full Self-Driving driver-assistance software. Services revenue grew 33% year over year to $4.6 billion and delivered a record $734 million in gross profit, which helped keep Tesla in the black. Even so, net income came in at $787 million, a 43% decline from the $1.37 billion earned in the same period last year. TechCrunch attributes the squeeze to surging expenses tied to Optimus, AI and autonomous driving, along with lower regulatory credit sales.

Why it matters

Very few humanoid robot programs anywhere have reached a production line rather than a lab or a pilot batch. Tesla moving Optimus onto a former auto assembly floor in Fremont is a genuine manufacturing milestone for the field, and it signals how central robotics has become to the company's identity beyond cars.

At the same time, the quarter exposes the cost of that pivot. Revenue is flat, profit nearly halved, and the robot meant to justify the spending is — by Musk's own account — still being tweaked for safety, durability and basic usefulness, with an untested path from early production to the claimed rate of 20,000 units per week. Whether the Fremont line matures into a real product business or remains an expensive showcase will be one of the defining questions for Tesla over the next few years, and a benchmark for the wider humanoid robotics industry.