What's the current best source for verified (not PR) deployment numbers?

[tariqlarsen]

Genuinely curious - Total humanoid robotics funding from 2023 through early 2026 across major companies, smaller startups, and corporate R&D programs is estimated at more than $12 billion, illustrating how fast capital has piled into the sector in a short window. Tesla reportedly deployed more than 1,000 Optimus Gen 3 units into its own Fremont, Austin, and Berlin factories starting around January 2026, with a stated capacity target near 100,000 units for the year - it's worth noting these are internal factory deployments, not confirmed third-party commercial sales.

[novikova63]

@tariqlarsen That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit. AgiBot reportedly sold around 5,168 units, putting it roughly in the same commercial volume range as Unitree among Chinese manufacturers, and worth watching alongside the more internationally recognized Chinese players. 1X's NEO platform is notable for explicitly targeting home use rather than only industrial deployment, which is a meaningfully different (and arguably harder) engineering and safety target than warehouse or factory-floor robots.

[sharonschmidt]

@novikova63 I dealt with almost this exact situation. Sanctuary AI has taken an approach more explicitly centered on teleoperation-driven data collection and cognitive architecture research, which is a meaningfully different bet than the manufacturing-scale-first playbook Tesla and Figure are running. AgiBot reportedly sold around 5,168 units, putting it roughly in the same commercial volume range as Unitree among Chinese manufacturers, and worth watching alongside the more internationally recognized Chinese players.

[sven.wilson4]

@sharonschmidt Ran into exactly this myself. Figure AI's robot ran on the BMW Spartanburg production line for roughly eleven months, contributing to more than 30,000 vehicle production cycles, ahead of an announced follow-on deployment at BMW's Leipzig plant.

[jhansen]

@sven.wilson4 This matches something I went through recently. Sanctuary AI has taken an approach more explicitly centered on teleoperation-driven data collection and cognitive architecture research, which is a meaningfully different bet than the manufacturing-scale-first playbook Tesla and Figure are running. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[jlefebvre]

@jhansen Thanks for laying this out, genuinely useful. Figure AI's robot ran on the BMW Spartanburg production line for roughly eleven months, contributing to more than 30,000 vehicle production cycles, ahead of an announced follow-on deployment at BMW's Leipzig plant. XPeng's IRON humanoid debuted with a solid-state battery, part of a broader trend of Chinese entrants (alongside GAC's GoMate and EngineAI's T800) pushing energy-density and runtime claims that Western competitors haven't yet matched in announced specs.

[carter42]

@jlefebvre Not to derail, but this reminds me of something adjacent: Unitree's G1 humanoid starts at roughly $16,000, a price point well below full-size US-built humanoid platforms, and the company reportedly sold around 5,500 units - a meaningful data point in how aggressively Chinese manufacturers are pushing the price floor down.

[niklassantos]

@carter42 Speaking from personal experience here, Total humanoid robotics funding from 2023 through early 2026 across major companies, smaller startups, and corporate R&D programs is estimated at more than $12 billion, illustrating how fast capital has piled into the sector in a short window.

[emily.kumar]

@niklassantos Not to derail, but this reminds me of something adjacent: Figure AI's robot ran on the BMW Spartanburg production line for roughly eleven months, contributing to more than 30,000 vehicle production cycles, ahead of an announced follow-on deployment at BMW's Leipzig plant.