The iPhone Moment for Robots Just Happened: Why Machine Hours Rewrite Labor

For example, Tesla has been collecting real-world manipulation data inside their factories for 2 years now with their Optimus humanoid robot and for even longer with their fleet of 9 million vehicles running their self-driving stack called FSD, which stands for full self-driving. But today, in 2026, that same actuator at low volume is running 500 to 2,000 bucks. And at Tesla scale, once they hit their million units a year target or more, Morgan Stanley pencils them out at 1 to 300 bucks each, probably far less. Bank of America says the average humanoid material cost will drop from 35,000-ish today to 13 to 17,000 by 2035. IDTech X says the average selling price falls from 115,000 to 37,000 over the next 4 years. And Tesla is working on Optimus to reach a $20,000 price target by the time they hit 1 million robots, which they are hoping they hit by 2030 or so.

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