Optimus Gen 1
Optimus Gen 1 was the first Tesla-designed humanoid, unveiled at AI Day 2022 with 28 actuators, an 11 DoF hand and a 2.3 kWh battery. It first walked untethered in videos in March and May 2023. Tesla positioned it as a product to be built at scale using its car-manufacturing know-how.
Sikander via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
We have not sat down with this one. The score below is computed from the data we hold, and the facts on this page are sourced. It is not on sale, so there is nothing to recommend.
How the score is built
Capability is what the machine physically does. Value compares it with others at a similar price, not with the whole market. Buyability asks whether you can really order one. Ecosystem is the software and community around it. Proof is what it has done in the field, which is where most humanoids score badly and should.
What people buy instead.
- Status
- Retired
- Category
- general purpose
- First revealed
- 30 September 2022
- Form
- bipedal
- Height
- 173 cm
- Weight
- 73 kg
- Payload
- 20 kg
- Degrees of freedom
- 28 (+11 per hand)
- Battery
- 2.3 kWh
- Runtime
- n/a
- Walking speed
- n/a
- Actuation
- electric, 28 Tesla-designed rotary and linear actuators
- Units deployed (est.)
- not disclosed
- Teleoperation
- partial
Where it stands
Tesla-designed first generation shown in 2022 and walking in 2023; superseded by Gen 2 in December 2023.
What stands out
- 173 cm, about 73 kg, 2.3 kWh battery (Tesla 2022 spec)
- First untethered walking shown March 2023
- Sorting and yoga demo videos in 2023
Autonomy, observed
Videos in 2023 showed sorting blocks and yoga poses; no independent deployment reported.
Training used human teleoperation and motion capture; demos were mostly scripted or teleop-assisted.
Hands, sensors, brain
- Hands: five-finger, 11 DoF, tendon driven
- Sensors: cameras (Autopilot derived vision)
- Compute: Tesla FSD computer derivative
- AI stack: Tesla FSD-derived neural networks
Price and volume
no public price; Musk guided a long-term price of USD 20,000 to 30,000
How a humanoid robot works: actuators, compute, sensors and the model
Of 182 humanoids on record, 178 say what moves the joints and 43 say what computer is inside. The further a layer sits from the metal, the less the maker tells you about it.
How long does a humanoid robot actually run
22 of 182 humanoids on record quote a runtime. The claims run from 1 to 8 hours with a median of 4, and of the 44 machines you can order, 4 say anything at all.
Tesla Optimus: what the record shows, and what you can buy
Four Optimus records, five years, no price and no order page. Here is what Tesla has shown, what it has said about money and dates, and how much of it has been checked by anyone outside Tesla.
Why hands are the hardest part of a humanoid
Of 182 humanoids on record, 96 describe their hands and 13 publish a degrees-of-freedom figure for them. The word dexterous appears 21 times and comes with a number once.
Other robots by Tesla.
Optimus (Bumblebee prototype)
Bumblebee was the first physical Tesla humanoid, built in about six months after the 2021 Tesla Bot announcement using off-the-shelf parts. It walked on stage at AI Day on 30 September 2022 and was shown moving boxes in a video. It was a stepping stone toward the Tesla-designed Optimus Gen 1 shown the same day.
Optimus Gen 2
Optimus Gen 2, revealed on 12 December 2023, is about 10 kg lighter than Gen 1, walks 30 percent faster and has Tesla-designed actuators, an actuated neck and tactile fingers. It has been used for internal factory trials and at Tesla marketing events, where it was partly teleoperated. It is the version the public has seen most.
Optimus V3
Optimus V3 is the version Tesla describes as production-intent, with a new 22 DoF hand and forearm and a factory line in Fremont planned for 2026. Musk has repeatedly said V3 would be unveiled in early 2026 and that volume production is targeted for later in the decade. Tesla has stated a long-term ambition of one million units per year.
Sources
- 01
- 02Optimus (robot)Wikipedia
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