Drone Video Shows Tesla Optimus Factory Steel Frame Nearing Completion
Structural assembly is now only five column grids from the north perimeter beam at the Giga Texas North Campus site.
Drone footage captured by observer Joe Tegtmeyer indicates that the structural steel assembly for Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is in its final stretch, with the frame now approximately five column grids away from the building’s north perimeter beam.
What Happened
According to video posted Thursday afternoon, the primary skeleton of the facility is nearing completion roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March. The footage shows concrete being poured on three upper floors while crews simultaneously lay rebar and pour grade beam footings at ground level. This parallel construction method, where steel rises at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, mirrors the scheduling approach Tesla employed during the construction of the original Giga Texas building to accelerate the timeline before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Why It Matters
The visible progress on the Giga Texas facility underscores Tesla’s commitment to its previously stated goal of bringing high-volume Optimus production online at the site in summer 2027. The new factory is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion that Tesla says will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory. Once at full capacity, the Texas plant is projected to produce 10 million Optimus units annually, a volume significantly higher than the tens of thousands expected from the pilot line currently generating data at Tesla’s Fremont, California facility. Housing the robot assembly alongside the joint Tesla-SpaceX Terafab chip plant is intended to reduce supply chain lead times for the silicon powering the robots.
The Bottom Line
With structural steel assembly approaching the north perimeter beam and concrete work advancing on upper floors, the Optimus factory construction appears to be tracking toward Tesla’s summer 2027 production target, as documented by recurring external drone observations.
