Tesla raises investor eyebrows with plan to abandon EVs for robotics

Electric car manufacturer Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, has projected that the company will switch from autonomous automobiles to robotics. He further suggested in the firm’s Master Plan Part 4 that 80% of the company’s value will come from the Optimus robots.

Musk’s projects that the transition to humanoid robots positions Tesla as a potential $25 trillion company by 2050. The tech executive also revealed that the company is on track to spend $10 billion on autonomous cars by the end of the year. 

Musk expects Optimus robots to drive Tesla’s growth 

The company expects the Optimus humanoid robot to drive growth in Tesla, with plans to produce around 5,000 Optimus units this year. The EV maker also plans to produce around 50,000 to 100,000 units in 2026 and around 500,000 to 1 million units yearly by the decade’s end.

The car manufacturer had reportedly built around 1,000 prototype Optimus units by mid-2025, but paused production for redesigns. The company said its engineers faced technical challenges, including battery life issues and low payload capacity.

Leading data and analytics company, GlobalData, projects that the robotics industry will be worth $218 billion in 2030 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14%.

Musk revealed plans to transition Tesla away from using motion capture body cameras to develop training methods that will allow Optimus robots to learn how to perform tasks by simply watching humans perform them. The company also plans to use Tesla Vision to create an environment navigation system that depends solely on raw image data, which Musk calls photon counting. 

The U.S. firm also revealed components of a vision-based system, including using its Full Self-Driving (FSD) chips to power AI inference and using neural networks to solve problems and challenges. Tesla also plans to create autonomy algorithms to build robust planning and decision-making systems.

An analyst at Stifel, Stephen Gengaro, argued that the company’s stock is overvalued if people are buying it because Tesla sells EVs, despite his having a buy rating on the shares. He added that people are purchasing the stock because there’s a very large growth opportunity in Optimus and FSD, and robotaxi can work for them.

CEO of Gerber Kawasaki seemed a bit skeptical about Tesla’s new initiatives, saying they won’t pay off because the firm has abandoned its original mission. He argued that the company’s mission is to advance sustainable transportation and energy, not to create robotaxis and human robots. He urged the firm to maintain its previous mission to keep selling EVs, battery systems, and solar.

Tesla reports drop in global sales

The transition to robotics comes as Tesla’s core EV business reported a 13% drop in global sales in the first half of 2025. The firm also reported a 40% drop in European sales and a 5% dip in China as Chinese automakers have eaten into Tesla’s market share. The car manufacturer also accounted for only 38% of the total EV sales in the U.S. last month, a level last seen in October 2017.

The EV company has reflected the turbulence with a 2.76% drop YTD. Tesla’s shares have shown signs of recovery following the release of Master Plan Part 4, surging by roughly 8.21% in the past month to $368.81. 

The firm has cited multiple pressures, including the expiration of EV tax credits at the end of the month, a slowdown in consumer demand, and rising competition from companies like China’s BYD. Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox, said that although Tesla positioned itself as a robotics company, a lack of new products caused shares to drop.

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