Tesla started Optimus production at Fremont

Tesla says Optimus production has started at Fremont. The Q3 2026 shareholder update says the robots coming off the high-volume line are the first production-quality units the company has made. California is listed as an early ramp. Texas is still under construction. The letter does not name a version, a unit count, or a price.

What the April plan said

On the Q1 2026 call, Elon Musk tied a Fremont start to late July or August 2026 and described a line built for about 1 million robots a year at full rate. That million figure is the line design, not a count of robots built. The July 22 update dropped the summer window. It said the old Model S and Model X lines were being converted and that production was anticipated later in 2026. October is the first shareholder letter that says production has begun.

Musk had already warned that 2026 output would be quite slow, because a new line with about 10,000 unique parts is hard to predict. The October letter fits that warning. Tesla says it will keep changing the hardware and the process, and that the current process is suitable for a commercial product. The capacity cell for Optimus is blank. Giga Texas remains a construction project in the same table. Older materials still point at a second Optimus factory around summer 2027.

The April call talked about Optimus V3 and about robots that learn from demonstration, speech, and video. The October letter just says Optimus. It does not confirm that the bots on the line are the V3 design. There is still no home-task sheet and no buyer price.

Price talk vs proof

Analysts still circle a $20,000 to $30,000 unit-cost band if Tesla hits serious volume. That is not a store price. Tesla has not published an MSRP, a reservation, or a date for selling a robot to a household. Musk also said no Optimus units did useful factory work in 2025. The new letter does not walk that back with a home trial.

Still not a home checkout

The home signal is a factory ramp, not a preorder. HomeBotRadar still tracks this program as Optimus Gen 2, because that is the public row we can score. This note does not change that listing. Availability for a home buyer is still Coming Soon.