By Hadas Gold, CNN
Photo: CHRISTOPH SOEDER / AFP
Tesla dominated the electric vehicle industry by the mid-2010s with sleek, fast cars that helped combat the public perception that EVs were severely limited by short ranges.
Now the company - and its controversial CEO, Elon Musk - face stiffer competition and political headwinds. Its EV sales fell by a record 9 percent in 2025, amid increasing rivalry from China and the expiration of the US EV sales tax credit.
But Musk has been steering the company toward an audacious bet. He believes Tesla's future won't ride on cars but on humanoid robots.
On Tesla's earnings call on Wednesday (US time), Musk laid out a literal replacement of Tesla cars by robots - announcing Tesla would discontinue the Model S and Model X in favor of making more of its Optimus robots.
"We're gonna take the Model S and X production space in our Fremont factory and convert that into an Optimus factory β¦ with the long-term goal of having 1 million units a year of Optimus robots in the current SX space in Fremont," he said.
It's the quintessential, science-fiction dream of the future: Musk says Tesla's Optimus robots will do e
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