Industry Notes / Robots: Tesla and Unitree / Chapter 2 of 10 · Thesis cards

Tesla: the missing supply chain

Almost no mature parts vendors exist

1. 1

   Build the chain from scratch

   Early ramp will be slow; suppliers are asked to stand up ~100k sets/year.

   OEMs push capex risk onto the supply base.

2. 2

   Hands are the last centimeter

   22

   Gen3 DoF per hand

   vs

   ~50

   Actuators across both hands

   Near half the engineering; tendon designs were shown then walked back.

   Miniaturization multiplies difficulty.

3. 3

   Magnets and data

   ~3.5 kg NdFeB per unit; China ~90% of magnet capacity. Real out-of-factory task data is still scarce.

   No deployment, no data; no data, no generalization.

Musk’s line: cars have wheels and glass vendors; Optimus must be built inside from zero. Bottlenecks: hands, rare-earth magnets, and the data loop.

Source：特斯拉 2026Q2 电话会；Optimus 公开产能规划与供应链报道

Research notes, not investment advice.