Optimus humanoid robot costs $55K—legs alone $21K

Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2 humanoid robot “bill of materials” (BOM) is estimated at about $55K, according to a Morgan Stanley breakdown. The biggest cost is locomotion: legs and related hardware are roughly $21K, or about 38.6% of the total. Hands are the next largest category at about $9.5K (17.2%). Shoulders, waist and pelvis parts make up the remaining high-cost buckets. While $55K for a complete humanoid robot is still high, the article notes it is not unusual versus other industry benchmarks. Boston Dynamics’ Atlas was long discussed as far costlier than a consumer unit (often cited in six figures), and Agility Robotics’ Digit has also been referenced around $100K+ for early deployments. Elon Musk’s stated scaling target is a consumer price of $20K–$30K for Optimus. However, current production cost estimates cited in the article run about $50K–$80K or more once assembly, testing and overhead are included—leaving a large gap between the $55K BOM and Musk’s target pricing. Tesla’s plan calls for limited external sales beginning in late 2026, with ambitions for much larger annual manufacturing later. For traders, the key watch items are the Optimus per-unit BOM cost trajectory over the next 12–18 months and whether Tesla secures meaningful pilot deployments in its own factories before pushing wider sales. Overall, the $55K Optimus BOM suggests the project is backed by real hardware economics, but the timeline to cut costs toward $20K–$30K remains uncertain.