TL;DR: Tesla missed its 2025 humanoid robot targets by a mile, while Chinese companies like Unitree are shipping thousands of units to buyers right now.
Here is the reality check the American robotics industry desperately needs. Everybody talks about Figure AI and Tesla. Yet companies like Unitree and Agibot are actually shipping units in massive volumes. Tesla aimed to build 5,000 Optimus robots by the end of 2025. They only managed to get about 150 out the door.
Meanwhile, Unitree is playing an entirely different game. You can literally go online today and buy their H1 or G1 models. They are actively shipping to the US and Canada. The numbers for 2026 are wild. Unitree is targeting 10,000 to 20,000 shipments this year alone.
This creates a massive data advantage. More robots in the hands of researchers and developers means faster software iteration. If Tesla and Figure do not ramp up production hardware soon, they risk falling permanently behind companies that already have thousands of robots walking around in the wild.