Tesla confirms in its Q1 2026 report that production of the first generation Optimus robot is already underway at the Fremont factory, with a pilot line targeting a capacity of one million units per year.
An even more significant piece of information refers to the new location next to the Gigafactory Texas complex, where the zone for preparing the ground for the future Optimus factory has been marked. According to the documentation, the expansion of the northern campus by more than 483,000 m² is planned by the end of 2026, with an estimated investment of between 5 and 10 billion dollars.
Tesla Optimus factories and plans
The long-term goal of this factory is to produce as many as 10 million robots per year. The existing complex in Texas already occupies about 10 km² and has more than 929,000 m² of production space, while the new expansion is planned to support several projects, including the Optimus factory, the Terafab chip production facility (joint project with SpaceX and xAI), the Cybercab test track and supporting infrastructure.
Texas also has strategic advantages: a more favorable tax system, lower labor costs compared to California, as well as proximity to Tesla’s Cortex 1 and 2 AI centers, which together have more than 230,000 H100 equivalent GPU units. This will bring together software development and robot production at the same location.
The report also confirmed that the tape-out phase for the AI5 chip was completed in April, a processor specially developed to control Optimus robots in real-world conditions. According to earlier statements by Elon Musk, the company plans to offer the Optimus robot to the general market by the end of 2027, at a price between 20,000 and 30,000 dollars. Musk estimates that the long-term global demand for humanoid robots could exceed 20 billion units, both in industry and in everyday use, reports Teslarati.