Tesla ramping Optimus production, D-Robotics wants to be the NVIDIA of China, and 13,361 people ordered a home robot
Tesla reportedly in China auditing Optimus suppliers
Tesla's Optimus production team landed in Ningbo on September 16, according to at least one report.
They're conducting a mass-production audit of Chinese component suppliers, and the markets reacted immediately.
Apparently 7 Chinese companies have been finalized as Tier 1 core suppliers for Optimus Gen 3, and together they supply roughly 70% of the robot's components.
That's interesting, to say the least. Figure and especially 1X are focused on vertical integration and building much if not most of their needed components for Figure 03 and Neo. Tesla seems to be adopting a different path ... and one that ones it up to supply chain risk.
Ningbo sits in the "one-hour industrial circle" spanning Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Shanghai, which enables same-day prototyping, complete vertical integration ... at least locally. Leaderdrive's harmonic drives cost 40–60% of Japanese equivalents, and Wuzhou Xinchun's roller screws are about half the price of German competitors.
Reportedly the audit has three stated goals: verify exclusivity and consistency across suppliers, assist with equipment debugging, and migrate manufacturing capability from U.S. plants into the Chinese supply chain.
Tesla's production targets are aggressive: 1,000 Optimus units per week by end of September, 2,000–2,500 per week by year-end, and Musk has guided 50,000 to 150,000 total units for 2026. We'll see if that's possible, but it seems extremely unlikely given the current date and current state.
11-year Tesla Supercharger hardware lead joins Figure
An 11-year Tesla veteran who most recently led Supercharger hardware engineering has confirmed he is leaving to join Figure, the AI humanoid robotics startup. The departure, reported by Fred Lambert of Electrek, adds another senior name to the list of experienced Tesla engineers moving into robotics.
Figure isn't a random landing spot.
The company previously poached Zackary Bernholtz, a seven-year Tesla Staff Technical Program Manager, in June 2025. Milan Kovac, who led Tesla's Optimus engineering program for nine years, also departed that month.
Agility hosts Analyst & Investor Day on October 6
Agility Robotics is hosting a 2.5-hour Analyst and Investor Day in New York City on October 6, starting at 12:30 PM ET.
CEO Peggy Johnson, co-founder Jonathan Hurst, CFO Michael Beer, and the broader leadership team will cover Digit 5's technical platform, commercial momentum with Amazon/GXO/Schaeffler/Toyota, RoboFab manufacturing strategy, software roadmap, and financial projections. A webcast and replay will be available.
The context: Agility's SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI — valuing the company at $2.5B pre-money — is expected to close in Q4 2026.
This is the pre-IPO investor warm-up ...
D-Robotics grabs $400M to become the brain inside every robot
China's D-Robotics just closed a $400 million Series C, led by Mirae Asset, with Meituan and several state-backed funds participating. Total cumulative funding now exceeds $620 million.
D-Robotics doesn't build robots. It makes the chips and software that go inside them. The Sunrise chip line has shipped more than 8 million units. The new Sunrise S600, launched last November, was adopted by more than 20 customers within six months, including UBTECH, Astribot, Fourier, and Booster Robotics.
That's a picks-and-shovels play. Whatever companies win or lose in the humanoid market, D-Robotics wants to be the platform everyone builds on. Revenue "grew several times year-over-year" in the first half of 2026, per the press release, though no absolute figure was disclosed.
The bet is that humanoids will need a common silicon and software substrate the same way mobile phones needed ARM and Android.
D-Robotics essentially wants to be China's NVIDIA ... and maybe, eventually, the world's.
Vertical hip motion cuts humanoid energy use by 14%
New research published in Scientific Reports (Nature) finds that biped robots designed with vertical hip motion — the natural up-and-down oscillation in human walking — consume roughly 14% less energy per unit distance than designs that lock hip height in place.
(Hey, us meatbags still know a few things.)
The savings come primarily from reduced knee effort during the stance phase, while fixed-height designs require greater knee flexion to maintain stability. And that burns more energy.
The study used a five-link 2D biped model with gait optimization via a genetic algorithm. Results are simulation-only for now and need hardware validation, but the efficiency gain is significant enough to matter at scale.
Number of the day: 13,361
That's how many people pre-ordered a UBTech U1 humanoid robot to live in their home. Deliveries started yesterday, September 16.
Thirteen thousand, three hundred and sixty-one home robots.
Shipping.
The U1 Lite starts at 119,800 yuan, roughly $16,500. The flagship Ultra tops out at 990,000 yuan, about $135,000. The robot stands 1.68 to 1.83 meters tall, has 88 degrees of freedom — including blinking, smiling, and hand-holding — and runs an emotion-aware AI that builds long-term memory of its owner.
It also has medical-grade silicone skin with visible pores.
UBTech claims the U1 is the first mass-produced humanoid companion robot to actually ship into homes. It's certainly the best-place claim to that title, but these are high-cost, low-volume units by any conventional manufacturing definition.
But the number is real. The deliveries are real.
Early buyers report that the real robots walk more mechanically than the promotional renders suggested. That gap between demo and delivered products is a recurring theme in this industry ...
Sources
- BigGo Finance — Tesla's Optimus mass-production audit lands in Ningbo; China A-share supply chain stocks surge
- Tesla Supercharger lead joins Figure
- Agility analyst and investor day
- PR Newswire — D-Robotics Completes $400 Million in Series C Funding
- Human-like hip motion cuts humanoid robot energy use
- Startup Fortune — UBTech starts delivering its $16,500 humanoid companion robots today
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I tell stories with data and build startups. I've raised angel and VC funds, led software companies and startups, and chronicled the rise of the mobile economy. Currently I write for Forbes, host several podcasts, and am starting up HumanoidMegaHub. I was TUNE's mobile economist and Singular's VP of Insights, built the research team at VentureBeat, and managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney. In past lives I built websites, e-learning platforms, and mobile apps, and, a long time ago, was named to Folio's top 100 of the media industry's "most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers.”