TL;DR: Elon Musk confirmed Optimus production starts this summer. The catch? They are tearing down the 14-year-old Model S and X line in Fremont to make room for it.
Things are moving incredibly fast over at Tesla. During the Q1 2026 earnings call, Elon Musk dropped a timeline that raised eyebrows. Production for the Optimus humanoid robot is officially slated for late July or August. That is just months away.
But where are they building it? Right in Fremont. Tesla is ending the 14-year production run of the Model S and 11-year run for the Model X. By early May, the final cars will roll off that line. Then the teardown begins. They are ripping out the old equipment and installing a completely new infrastructure just for the bot.
Don’t expect a million bots on day one. Musk was very upfront about this. He warned that initial output will be slow. The robot requires 10,000 unique parts across an unproven assembly line. Predicting the exact numbers for this year is impossible. The real story here is the pivot. Tearing down their flagship car line to build a humanoid robot shows exactly where Tesla thinks the future is headed.