How much of Optimus's roadmap depends on Tesla's existing manufacturing scale?

[noah_pate]

Yeah, this tracks with what I've read as well. 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.

[ramirez77]

Sorry if this is a basic question, but 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. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[choi98]

@ramirez77 Thanks for laying this out, genuinely useful. 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. Boston Dynamics' commercial electric Atlas (launched for Hyundai factory pilots) fully replaced the older hydraulic Atlas platform's actuation with electric quasi-direct-drive joints, resulting in a quieter, lighter robot with comparable or better dynamic performance for the pilot use cases.

[mary.taylor6]

I'd push back on this a bit. 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.

[scott.novikova7]

@mary.taylor6 This lines up with my experience. 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. Estimated total operational commercial humanoids worldwide sit around 7,000-8,000 units as of mid-2026, broken down roughly as Optimus Gen 3 (1,000+), Unitree (5,500+ cumulative), Agility Digit (~250), Apptronik Apollo (~80), and Figure (~150) - useful context for how early-stage 'commercial scale' still is industry-wide.

[mary.taylor6]

@scott.novikova7 Just to be precise about one thing: Automotive manufacturers - BMW, Mercedes, BYD, Geely, and Toyota among them - have become some of the most important early adopters, largely because their factories already have the structured environments and safety processes that make early humanoid deployment more tractable. 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.

[hill23]

@mary.taylor6 I dealt with almost this exact situation. 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. 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.

[larrysokolov]

Sorry if this is a basic question, but 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. 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.

[erik_novi]

Slight correction, though the overall point stands: 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. 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.

[vyoung]

@erik_novi Pretty much this. One thing to add: 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.