Tesla Optimus Factory at Giga Texas: 4 Months of Rapid Progress

Four months ago, the Optimus Factory site at Giga Texas was little more than prepared ground. Today, a multi-story steel superstructure is climbing skyward — and a new timelapse from aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer puts the pace of that transformation into sharp relief. The footage spans March 23 to July 27, 2026, and the rate of vertical progress visible in it matters well beyond the construction industry: this is the building where Tesla plans to eventually manufacture up to 10 million humanoid robots per year.

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How Fast Is It Actually Going Up?

The numbers from verified aerial observations tell a concrete story. By mid-June, the steel superstructure had already cleared four floors in at least one section. A week later — by June 24 — construction had pushed well beyond that mark, with seven large cranes operating simultaneously and floor decking installation already underway. That kind of parallel crane deployment is not routine; it signals Tesla is running an accelerated construction schedule, not a standard commercial build.

By July 13, the factory footprint had grown to roughly 360 feet (approximately 100 meters) north to south across eight column lengths, approaching its full intended width in the active steel assembly zone. Ground preparation work — fill dirt, geotextile membranes, silt fences — continued on the southern end of the site as of July 20, indicating the foundation footprint itself is still expanding. The building is not just going up; it is still growing outward.

The Numbers Behind the Factory

Where Giga Texas Fits in the Broader Optimus Ramp

The Giga Texas factory is the second leg of Tesla's Optimus manufacturing buildout, not the first. Gen 3 mass production began at the Fremont factory on January 21, 2026 — the same facility where Model S and Model X production ended in Q2 2026 to free up floor space for robot manufacturing. Full V3 body production at Fremont is slated for late July to August 2026, which means Fremont is expected to hit its next production milestone before Giga Texas even brings its first line online.

The Texas facility is being designed for a different order of magnitude. At 10 million units annually — roughly 27,000 robots per day at full capacity — it would dwarf any single automotive assembly plant ever built. That target is years away from being tested, but the construction pace suggests Tesla is not treating it as a distant aspiration.

The Optimus factory is also being built adjacent to the planned Terafab AI chip facility on Giga Texas's North Campus, where Cortex 2.0 is being scaled toward approximately 500 MW and 230,000-plus GPUs. The AI5 inference chip, designed specifically for Optimus, completed its tape-out in April 2026 — meaning the silicon intended to run these robots is already past a key design milestone as the factory walls rise around it.

What the Timelapse Actually Shows

Tegtmeyer's four-month compilation is more than a visual curiosity. Construction timelines for facilities of this scale typically run three to five years from groundbreak to production-ready. Tesla is targeting first production lines in the first half of 2027 — roughly 15 months from the March 2026 groundwork start. Whether the current pace is sufficient to hit that window will become clearer as the superstructure reaches its full height and interior fit-out work begins. The next few months of aerial footage will be worth watching closely.

🤖 Tracking Tesla's humanoid robot? See every Optimus production milestone and appearance in our Tesla Optimus Tracker.

This report was curated by the BASENOR Editorial Desk from the sources listed above. Read our editorial standards or email editorial@basenor.com to report an error.