Tesla workers balk at training Optimus humanoid robots as replacements
Tesla workers balk at training Optimus humanoid robots as replacements
特斯拉员工抵制培训 Optimus 人形机器人以取代自己的岗位
Tesla’s pivot from making electric cars to humanoid robots is facing challenges because of complex robot hands and disgruntled employees pushing back against training their robotic replacements. The struggle to scale up production comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bet the company’s future on AI and robotics. As someone who frequently makes claims that fail to materialize, Musk has described the Optimus humanoid robot as potentially “the biggest product ever” during Tesla’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call. But he also acknowledged that making an autonomous humanoid robot capable of handling many different tasks is “one of the hardest things to solve”—and now extensive reporting by The Information has revealed multiple complications that Tesla is trying to tackle while developing general-purpose robots and scaling up for mass production.
特斯拉从制造电动汽车向人形机器人的转型正面临挑战，原因在于复杂的机器人手部设计，以及不满的员工拒绝培训那些将要取代他们的机器人。在特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克将公司未来押注于人工智能和机器人技术之际，扩大生产规模变得举步维艰。作为一名经常做出无法兑现承诺的人，马斯克在特斯拉 2026 年第二季度财报电话会议上称，Optimus 人形机器人可能是“有史以来最伟大的产品”。但他同时也承认，制造一种能够处理多种任务的自主人形机器人是“最难解决的问题之一”。如今，《The Information》的一篇深度报道揭示了特斯拉在开发通用机器人并扩大规模以进行量产时，正试图解决的多重复杂问题。
Tesla’s Fremont factory in California has already stopped making the Model S sedan and Model X SUV as of May 2026, with the company switching both line workers and engineers over to working on Optimus, according to The Information. But the newest version of Optimus, called Optimus V3, has proven challenging from a development and manufacturing standpoint. The Information’s reporting describes troubles with getting production line equipment to precisely line up components, along with limitations in running the production line too fast. Tesla has reportedly scaled up production to hundreds of robots per week—but the company is targeting production numbers surpassing 1,000 robots per week by the end of 2026.
据《The Information》报道，截至 2026 年 5 月，特斯拉加州弗里蒙特工厂已停止生产 Model S 轿车和 Model X SUV，公司已将流水线工人和工程师全部转岗至 Optimus 项目。然而，最新版本的 Optimus（即 Optimus V3）在开发和制造方面都表现出了挑战性。《The Information》的报道描述了生产线设备在精确对齐组件方面遇到的困难，以及生产线运行速度过快所带来的局限性。据报道，特斯拉已将产量提升至每周数百台，但公司的目标是在 2026 年底前实现每周超过 1,000 台的产量。
The automotive industry and other industries have already been using specialized industrial robots, such as robotic arms, for decades. Tesla and many other automakers and robotics companies are betting that humanoid robots coupled with advances in AI models could eventually unlock general-purpose robots that can handle a diverse array of tasks while fitting more seamlessly into human workplaces.
汽车行业和其他工业领域几十年来一直在使用机械臂等专业工业机器人。特斯拉以及许多其他汽车制造商和机器人公司都在押注：人形机器人结合人工智能模型的进步，最终将开启通用机器人的时代，使其能够处理各种任务，并更无缝地融入人类工作场所。
Hardware and AI challenges
硬件与人工智能挑战
It’s no secret that making robotic hands capable of doing delicate manipulation tasks on par with human hands is a huge engineering challenge. The complexity of such robotic hands has translated into more production headaches for Tesla as human workers must manually assemble Optimus hands and forearms that together have more than 100 small components such as screws. The imperfect and manually intensive manufacturing process has led to newly produced robots that require immediate fixes. Touch sensors for the robot’s hands have also proven unreliable enough so that Tesla has now developed a glove-like layer of sensors that can be replaced without replacing the entire robot hand.
制造出能与人手相媲美、进行精细操作的机器人手，这在工程学上是一个巨大的挑战，这已不是什么秘密。这种机器人手的复杂性给特斯拉带来了更多的生产难题，因为工人必须手动组装 Optimus 的手部和前臂，两者加起来有超过 100 个小零件（如螺丝）。这种不完善且高度依赖人工的制造过程，导致新生产的机器人往往需要立即进行维修。机器人手部的触觉传感器也被证明不够可靠，因此特斯拉现在开发了一种类似手套的传感器层，无需更换整个机械手即可进行替换。
The robot’s AI capabilities are also reportedly still insufficient for general-purpose operations, which is unsurprising given the challenges facing every robotics company on that front. Instead, one of The Information’s sources described Tesla’s Optimus robots as currently requiring programming to do specific tasks in carefully controlled environments. One of the biggest challenges facing all robotics companies is getting enough training data to help robots visually learn a wide variety of manual tasks. The heavy reliance on imitation learning prompted Tesla to have factory workers in Texas and California wear special suits designed to record their physical movements while working. However, The Information described some workers complaining because they “knew the robots were designed to eventually replace them.” So Tesla has apparently shifted that data collection responsibility to dedicated teams and has also set up “training hubs” for such teams.
据报道，该机器人的 AI 能力对于通用操作来说仍然不足，考虑到所有机器人公司在这一领域面临的挑战，这并不令人意外。相反，《The Information》的一位消息人士称，特斯拉的 Optimus 机器人目前仍需要通过编程来在精心控制的环境中执行特定任务。所有机器人公司面临的最大挑战之一是获取足够的训练数据，以帮助机器人通过视觉学习各种手动任务。对模仿学习的过度依赖促使特斯拉让德克萨斯州和加州的工厂工人穿上特制服装，以记录他们在工作时的身体动作。然而，《The Information》描述称，一些工人对此表示不满，因为他们“知道这些机器人最终是为了取代他们而设计的”。因此，特斯拉显然已将数据收集责任转移给了专门的团队，并为这些团队设立了“培训中心”。
Competition to make robots
机器人制造竞争
The Information also makes a point of highlighting Tesla’s continued reliance on Chinese suppliers to make various robot components. The Information previously reported on Silicon Valley startups bringing robotic parts from China to the United States in their luggage. The US robotics industry’s supply chain reliance on China has persisted despite the Trump administration trying to boost domestic supply chains and robotic production. In July, the Federal Communications Commission banned new foreign-made robots such as humanoid robots and four-legged robot dogs, along with robot vacuum cleaners.
《The Information》还特别强调了特斯拉在制造各种机器人组件时对中国供应商的持续依赖。该媒体此前曾报道过硅谷初创公司将中国的机器人零件装在行李中带回美国。尽管特朗普政府试图提振国内供应链和机器人生产，但美国机器人行业对中国的供应链依赖依然存在。7 月，美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）禁止了新的外国制造机器人，如人形机器人、四足机器狗以及扫地机器人。
Many of Tesla’s reported challenges in making humanoid robots are not unique. But that may be little comfort when Tesla also faces stiff competition on multiple fronts, as automakers in China, Japan, and South Korea are also developing humanoid robots, not to mention dedicated robotics companies pursuing humanoids. Toyota plans to invest billions of dollars in upgrading factories with robots, including some humanoids, while Hyundai is planning to deploy up to 25,000 Atlas humanoid robots developed by US subsidiary Boston Dynamics over the next several years. One of the companies furthest along in commercial deployment of humanoid robots is Oregon-based Agility Robotics, which first put them to work at an Atlanta-area warehouse owned by GXO Logistics in 2024. But the overall business case for humanoid robots still has to be proven through more sustained and cost-effective deployments—not to mention showing that such robots can work safely around humans.
特斯拉在制造人形机器人方面所面临的挑战并非个例。但当特斯拉在多个战线面临激烈竞争时，这或许并不能带来多少安慰，因为中国、日本和韩国的汽车制造商也在开发人形机器人，更不用说那些专门从事人形机器人研发的机器人公司了。丰田计划投资数十亿美元升级工厂，引入包括人形机器人在内的各类机器人；而现代汽车则计划在未来几年内部署多达 25,000 台由其美国子公司波士顿动力公司开发的人形机器人 Atlas。在人形机器人商业部署方面进展最快的公司之一是总部位于俄勒冈州的 Agility Robotics，该公司于 2024 年首次将机器人投入到 GXO Logistics 位于亚特兰大地区的仓库中工作。然而，人形机器人的整体商业案例仍需通过更持续、更具成本效益的部署来证明——更不用说还要证明这些机器人能够在人类周围安全工作。