Tesla pushes Optimus deliveries to late 2027, says hands still a problem

According to Electrek, Elon Musk said on Tesla's Q3 2026 earnings call that Optimus deliveries to outside customers will start around the end of 2027, with the hands, durability, and AI still needing work. Tesla has begun early production on a high-volume line in Fremont, with most equipment for a million-unit annual capacity installed, but reaching about 20,000 units per week will take at least a year because the design keeps changing. The hand is the hardest hardware area, requiring fingers soft enough for delicate objects yet able to survive constant wear.

On AI, Tesla lacks a robot fleet to gather data like its cars do, so it plans to build 10,000 to 20,000 robots to practice tasks in an "Optimus Academy" and aims to install its AI5 chip around April 2027. Musk promised a video within a month or two showing unscripted tasks. The timeline has slipped repeatedly, with 2024 targets for internal use in 2025 and high-volume external deliveries in 2026, and a January 2025 goal of 10,000 robots with several thousand useful by year-end later admitted unmet. Competitors XPeng and Boston Dynamics appear on similar or slightly ahead schedules.

Source

Tesla pushes Optimus deliveries to late 2027, says hands still a problem — Electrek