What's Tesla's actual internal target for Optimus cost-per-unit by 2027?

[carlossanchez]

This is a great summary, thanks. 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. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[williams84]

Ran into exactly this myself. 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. 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.

[cynthia.muller]

@williams84 Genuinely curious - 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. Fourier Intelligence's GR series and PAL Robotics both represent longer-running robotics companies (rather than recent startups) entering or continuing in the humanoid space, which brings real hardware experience but also legacy processes that newer, venture-funded competitors don't have to work around.

[ashley_flor]

Here's the relevant bit as far as I understand it: 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.

[karen.chen3]

This matches something I went through recently. Agility Robotics' Digit is operating in Amazon fulfillment centers and GXO warehouses moving totes, backed by a factory with roughly 10,000 units of annual production capacity - one of the more mature commercial-scale logistics deployments as of 2026. 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.

[green28]

@karen.chen3 Agreed, and I'd add: 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.

[carol.robinson]

@green28 I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly. 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. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[matthew43]

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

[zoeanderson]

Small correction on one detail: 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. Makes me wonder how this looks in another five years.

[matthew43]

Slight correction, though the overall point stands: 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. 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.