Tesla has started production of its Optimus humanoid robot at its factory in Fremont, California, a manufacturing space once dedicated to making electric vehicles, the company announced Wednesday.
“The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third-quarter letter to shareholders. “While we will continue to iterate on the hardware and manufacturing process, we have proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”
That fordward-looking development wasn’t enough to lift the company’s otherwise middling third-quarter earnings, results that typify a company at the midpoint of a major bet. Tesla’s revenue was flat and its expenses skyrocketed as it pressed the accelerator on its Optimus robots, AI, and autonomous driving. The end result was a 43% drop in profits.
The company’s revenue was largely driven by EV sales, which were flat year-over-year at $20 billion. Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, about 6,000 more than the previous quarter, but fewer than in the same period last year.
Tesla’s total third-quarter revenue was $28.04 billion, a skosh below the $28.09 billion it generated in the third quarter of 2025. Tesla’s third-quarter revenue was also lower, by about $200 million, from the previous quarter’s haul of $28.23 billion.
Tesla saw a 16% year-over-year drop in its solar and energy storage business to $2.8 billion, which it blamed on tariff-related customer refunds. There was some positive revenue growth under services, a category that includes customers subscriptions to its Full Self-Driving advanced driver-assistance software. Tesla’s services business grew 33% year-over-year, bringing in $4.6 billion.
None of this was enough to outpace Tesla’s spending on artificial intelligence projects, and its Optimus robot, which was a big hit to profits.
The company reported $787 million in net income, a 43% drop from the same period in 2025 when it earned $1.37 billion. Lower regulatory credit sales also put pressure on its profitability. The company stayed in the black in large part because of a big boost from its “services and other” segment, which accounted for a record $734 million in gross profit for the quarter.