HUMANOID ROBOTS
Humanoids moved from stage demos to factory lines in 2026.
Tesla has repurposed part of its Fremont line to build the third-generation Optimus, targeting low-volume production over the summer — a robot with 22-degree-of-freedom hands, Tesla's AI5 chip and Grok voice AI. Musk has floated an eventual consumer price of $20,000–$30,000, with a consumer launch pushed to around 2027.
It isn't alone. Figure is building its third-generation robot at a claimed rate near one per hour and running BMW assembly tasks, while Chinese makers from Unitree to BYD drive costs down and crowd the field. The open question for all of them is the same: not whether it can walk, but whether it can work a full shift, reliably.