Tesla’s pivot from making electric cars to humanoid robots is facing challenges because of robot hands and disgruntled workers pushing back against training their robotic replacements.
As someone who often makes claims that fail to materialize, Musk has described the Optimus humanoid robot as potentially “the biggest product ever” during Tesla’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call.
The complexity of such robotic hands has translated into more production headaches for Tesla as human workers must manually assemble Optimus hands and forearms that together have more than 100 small components such as screws.
In July, the Federal Communications Commission banned new foreign-made robots such as humanoid robots and four-legged robot dogs, along with robot vacuum cleaners.
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Tesla’s pivot from making electric cars to humanoid robots is facing challenges because of robot hands and disgruntled workers pushing back against training their robotic replacements. The struggle to scale up production comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bet the company’s future on AI and robotics.
As someone who often makes claims that fail to materialize, Musk has described the Optimus humanoid robot as potentially “the biggest product ever” during Tesla’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call.
Tesla’s Fremont factory in California has already stopped making the Model S sedan and Model X SUV as of May 2026, with the company switching both line workers and engineers over to working on Optimus, according to The Information.
Tesla and many other automakers and robotics companies are betting that humanoid robots coupled with advances in AI models could eventually unlock general-purpose robots that can handle a diverse array of tasks while fitting into human workplaces.
The complexity of such robotic hands has translated into more production headaches for Tesla as human workers must manually assemble Optimus hands and forearms that together have more than 100 small components such as screws.
One of The Information’s sources described Tesla’s Optimus robots as now needing programming to do specific tasks in carefully controlled environments.
In July, the Federal Communications Commission banned new foreign-made robots such as humanoid robots and four-legged robot dogs, along with robot vacuum cleaners.
One of the companies furthest along in commercial deployment of humanoid robots is Oregon-based Agility Robotics, which first put them to work at an Atlanta-area warehouse owned by GXO Logistics in 2024.
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