Tesla employees resist training Optimus humanoid robots that could replace them

Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot program is running into familiar but stubborn manufacturing and AI problems, according to a new report by The Information. Newly built units reportedly require immediate repairs after leaving the production line, and the robots remain unable to perform general-purpose tasks without careful programming and tightly controlled environments. The details matter because Tesla is racing against automakers and robotics firms worldwide to prove that humanoid robots can work commercially.

Production Woes: Faulty Sensors and Glove-Like Fixes

Optimus manufacturing remains imperfect and heavily manual, with newly produced robots needing fixes right away. One recurring pain point is the touch sensing in the robot's hands. The sensors have proven unreliable enough that Tesla developed a glove-like layer of sensors that can be swapped out on its own, rather than replacing the entire robotic hand.

On the software side, one of The Information's sources described the robots as currently requiring programming to carry out specific tasks in carefully controlled environments—far from the general-purpose assistant Tesla has promoted. That gap is not unique to Tesla; every robotics company faces the same core difficulty of getting machines to handle varied manual work reliably.

Data Problem: Motion-Capture Suits Met Worker Pushback

Like its rivals, Tesla's biggest bottleneck is training data. Robots learn many manual tasks through imitation learning, a method where machines learn by copying recorded human movements. To feed that pipeline, Tesla had factory workers in Texas and California wear special suits that recorded their physical movements on the job.

The arrangement ran into resistance. Some workers complained because, as The Information reported, they "knew the robots were designed to eventually replace them." Tesla has since shifted data collection to dedicated teams and set up "training hubs" for them.

China Supply Chain and a Crowded Field

The Information also highlighted Tesla's continued reliance on Chinese suppliers for robot components—a dependence so widespread that Silicon Valley startups have been reported carrying robotic parts from China to the US in their luggage. That reliance has persisted despite the Trump administration's push to boost domestic production. In July, the Federal Communications Commission banned new foreign-made robots, including humanoids, four-legged robot dogs, and robot vacuum cleaners.

Meanwhile, competition is intensifying. Toyota plans to invest billions of dollars upgrading factories with robots, including some humanoids, while Hyundai intends to deploy up to 25,000 Atlas humanoid robots from its US subsidiary Boston Dynamics over the next several years. Automakers in China, Japan, and South Korea are also developing humanoids. The furthest along commercially may be Oregon-based Agility Robotics, which first put humanoid robots to work at a GXO Logistics warehouse in the Atlanta area in 2024.

Where Things Stand

Optimus is still in the experimental production-and-training phase: hand hardware is being reworked, task autonomy remains limited, and data collection has been restructured. The next signal to watch is whether any humanoid maker—not just Tesla—can sustain cost-effective, safe deployments alongside human workers, which remains unproven across the industry.

Meta description: Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots face hand sensor fixes, limited autonomy, worker pushback over data collection, and reliance on Chinese suppliers, per The Information.

Tags: Tesla, Optimus, humanoid robots, robotics, Agility Robotics