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Elon Musk on Optimus humanoid robot production and price: “less than a car”
Elon Musk revealed the production timeline and estimated price of Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus when he recently appeared on TED. The Tesla CEO talked with Chris Anderson about Optimus and the humanoid robot’s future in society.
Optimus Production and Applications
“You know, the first units that we [Tesla] tend to make are for jobs that are dangerous, boring, repetitive, and things people don’t want to do,” Elon Musk told Anderson.
Musk estimated that Tesla would reveal an “interesting prototype” of the Optimus robot sometime this year and “might have something useful” by 2023. He predicts that Tesla will see growth in the humanoid robot project within the next two years. Around 2025, Musk thinks there will be rapid growth year-over-year in the usefulness of Optimus.
During their talk, Anderson and Musk took some time to imagine how Optimus would function in a home setting rather than a work setting. Anderson referred to Tesla’s humanoid robot as a personal butler of sorts. Elon Musk referred to Optimus as more of a buddy robot with many useful applications and forms, including a catgirl.
Optimus’s Price
As the humanoid robots useful functions expand, Musk believes Tesla will see a decrease in cost while Tesla scales production of Optimus. As for the price of Optimus Elon Musk had this to say: “I think the cost is actually not going to be crazy high, like less than a car.”
-->Unfortunately, Elon Musk did not say the make or model of the car he used as a basis for Optimus’ price. However, Anderson suggested around $25,000.
Optimus vs Human Workers
Anderson then asked the question that has been in the minds of quite a few people since Tesla unveiled Optimus: how would it affect the job market. Musk has repeatedly said that Optimus will initially be made for dangerous, monotonous jobs. However, as Tesla’s humanoid robot gains more advanced functionalities, a few people have wondered about its effect on the job market.
Anderson argued that the price of a humanoid robot worker would be much lower yearly compared to a human employee. Plus, a human worker would not be able to work the same long hours as a humanoid robot and would not want to go on vacations.
“I wouldn’t worry about putting people out of the job thing,” Musk replied. “I think we’re actually going to have and already do have a massive shortage of labor. So I think we’ll have not people out of work, but actually still a short of labor even in the future.”
The Tesla CEO has talked about the shortage of human workers in the past. The human labor shortages could be attributed to declining birth rates across the globe. Musk briefly talked about declining birth rates in an interview at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit.
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The Dystopian Scenario
Elon Musk also talked about the possibility of a dystopian scenario with Optimus. Before Tesla revealed plans to produce a humanoid robot, Musk was vocal about AI’s impact on human existence. The Tesla CEO has always provided cautionary warnings about developing AI and still maintains his beliefs today.
Musk mentioned putting some safety protocols in place for Tesla’s humanoid robot, showing the amount of forethought he has already put into Optimus’ design.
“I mean, obviously, we have to be careful [that] this doesn’t turn into a dystopian situation,” Musk said. “I think one of the things that’s going to be important is to have a localized rom chip on the robot that cannot be updated over the air, where if you — for example —were to say ‘stop stop stop’ that would — if anyone said that — then the robot would stop.”
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Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month.
Tesla’s sales momentum in China strengthened in November, with wholesale volumes rising to 86,700 units, reversing a slowdown seen in October.
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month. This was partly driven by tightened delivery windows, targeted marketing, and buyers moving to secure vehicles before changes to national purchase tax incentives take effect.
Tesla’s November rebound coincided with a noticeable spike in Model Y interest across China. Delivery wait times extended multiple times over the month, jumping from an initial 2–5 weeks to estimated handovers in January and February 2026 for most five-seat variants. Only the six-seat Model Y L kept its 4–8 week estimated delivery timeframe.
The company amplified these delivery updates across its Chinese social media channels, urging buyers to lock in orders early to secure 2025 delivery slots and preserve eligibility for current purchase tax incentives, as noted in a CNEV Post report. Tesla also highlighted that new inventory-built Model Y units were available for customers seeking guaranteed handovers before December 31.
This combination of urgency marketing and genuine supply-demand pressure seemed to have helped boost November’s volumes, stabilizing what had been a year marked by several months of year-over-year declines.
-->For the January–November period, Tesla China recorded 754,561 wholesale units, an 8.30% decline compared to the same period last year. The company’s Shanghai Gigafactory continues to operate as both a domestic production base and a major global export hub, building the Model 3 and Model Y for markets across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, among other territories.
Tesla bear Michael Burry got blunt with his beliefs over the company’s valuation, which he called “ridiculously overvalued” in a newsletter to subscribers this past weekend.
“Tesla’s market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,” Burry, who was the inspiration for the movie The Big Short, and was portrayed by Christian Bale.
Burry went on to say, “As an aside, the Elon cult was all-in on electric cars until competition showed up, then all-in on autonomous driving until competition showed up, and now is all-in on robots — until competition shows up.”
Tesla bear Michael Burry ditches bet against $TSLA, says ‘media inflated’ the situation
For a long time, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla, its stock, and its CEO, Elon Musk, even placing a $530 million bet against shares several years ago. Eventually, Burry’s short position extended to other supporters of the company, including ARK Invest.
Tesla has long drawn skepticism from investors and more traditional analysts, who believe its valuation is overblown. However, the company is not traded as a traditional stock, something that other Wall Street firms have recognized.
While many believe the company has some serious pull as an automaker, an identity that helped it reach the valuation it has, Tesla has more than transformed into a robotics, AI, and self-driving play, pulling itself into the realm of some of the most recognizable stocks in tech.
Burry’s Scion Asset Management has put its money where its mouth is against Tesla stock on several occasions, but the firm has not yielded positive results, as shares have increased in value since 2020 by over 115 percent. The firm closed in May.
In 2020, it launched its short position, but by October 2021, it had ditched that position.
Tesla has had a tumultuous year on Wall Street, dipping significantly to around the $220 mark at one point. However, it rebounded significantly in September, climbing back up to the $400 region, as it currently trades at around $430.
It closed at $430.14 on Monday.
Tesla appears to be making a change to its exterior side repeater cameras, which are used for the company’s Full Self-Driving suite, and other features, like Sentry Mode.
The change appears to be a potential upgrade in preparation for the AI5 suite, which CEO Elon Musk said will be present on a handful of vehicles next year, but will not be widely implemented until 2027.
Currently, Tesla uses a Sony sensor lens with the model number IMX963, a 5-megapixel camera with better dynamic range and low-light performance over the past iteration in Hardware 3 vehicles. Cameras in HW3 cars were only 1.2 megapixels.
However, Tesla is looking to upgrade, it appears, as Tesla hacker greentheonly has spotted a new sensor model in its firmware code, with the model number IMX00N being explicitly mentioned:
Looks like Tesla is changing (upgrading?) cameras in (some?) new cars produced.
Where as HW4 to date used exterior cameras with IMX963, now they (might potentially) have something called IMX00N— green (@greentheonly) December 1, 2025
Sony has not announced any formal specifications for the IMX00N model, and although IMX963 has been used in AI4/HW4 vehicles, it only makes sense that Tesla would prepare to upgrade these external cameras once again in preparation for what it believes to be the second hardware iteration capable of fully autonomous self-driving.
Tesla has maintained that AI4/HW4 vehicles are capable of self-driving operation, but AI5 will likely help the company make significant strides, especially in terms of overall performance and data collection.
Tesla last updated its exterior cameras on its vehicles back in early 2023, as it transitioned to the 5-megapixel IMX963. It also added additional cameras to its vehicles in January with the new Model Y, which featured an additional lens on the front bumper to help with Full Self-Driving.
Tesla’s new self-driving computer (HW4): more cameras, radar, and more
Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
Tesla bear gets blunt with beliefs over company valuation
