Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot is back in the spotlight — and this time, it’s running. In a new video shared by the official Tesla Optimus account on X, the bot can be seen jogging smoothly across the company’s lab, surrounded by a wall of other Optimus units plugged in and charging. “Just set a new PR in the lab,” the account wrote, showing off a surprisingly natural gait with minimal wobble and far more stability than earlier versions.
The clip also highlights one of Optimus’s more underrated abilities: autonomous charging. As seen in earlier demos, Optimus can detect when it’s low on power, locate the nearest charging station, navigate to it on its own, and back into the charger using only its rear-facing cameras. Seeing a lineup of robots quietly powering themselves adds an almost sci-fi touch — one that’s starting to look less like the future and more like Tesla’s present.
This latest milestone comes fresh off Optimus V2.5’s showcase at NeurIPS 2025 in San Diego, where attendees were treated to a close-up look at its incredibly humanlike 22-degree-of-freedom hands. A clip from the event shows the robot’s fingers flexing, waving, and moving with uncanny realism — something that had many attendees doing double takes.
The V2.5 design won’t be the flagship for long, though. Elon Musk previously said on Tesla’s Q3 earnings call that Optimus V3 will debut in early 2026, calling it “so real that you’ll need to poke it to believe it’s an actual robot.”
On the production side, Tesla’s humanoid robot program is accelerating fast. The company began construction of a massive new Optimus manufacturing facility at Gigafactory Texas last month, where it eventually plans to build up to 10 million units — “Optimi,” as Musk recently confirmed the plural form will be — every year. Pilot production has already started at the Fremont Factory, with Tesla aiming to reach an annual rate of 1 million robots by late 2026.
A number of Optimus units are already deployed across Tesla’s own factories and engineering offices, performing basic real-world tasks. The company plans to start using them for more complex factory processes beginning next year. Tesla is targeting a manufacturing cost of around $20,000 per robot once it reaches scale, with Musk betting heavily on Optimus becoming a core pillar of the company’s future — at one point even estimating it could make up as much as 80% of Tesla’s total valuation.
The Optimus program is also picking up talent. Tesla recently hired a machine learning and robotics engineer away from Apple to work in its Optimus AI team, continuing its steady buildup of expertise as it pushes toward large-scale deployment.
With running demos, autonomous charging, and major factory construction underway, Optimus is quickly transitioning from an R&D curiosity to a product Tesla seems determined to mass-produce — and soon.
