Tesla has started production of its Optimus humanoid robot at its factory in Fremont, California, in a manufacturing space once dedicated to making electric vehicles, the company announced Wednesday.

“The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third-quarter letter to shareholders. “While we will continue to iterate on the hardware and manufacturing process, we have proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on a conference call that he considers this “early production,” and that the ramp will be an slow and “somewhat bumpy because it is such a radically new product.” He nonetheless claimed Tesla will be able to make 20,000 of them per week by the end of 2027.

“There’s still some things we need to tweak about the design, because you need to deliver a robot that is that is safe and reliable and has long duration, so it can’t like, wear out after a month,” he said. “And there’s still quite a lot of work to do with regard to the AI and the robot for it to be truly useful for open-ended tasks.”

That fordward-looking development wasn’t enough to lift the company’s otherwise middling third-quarter earnings, results that typify a company at the midpoint of a major bet. Tesla’s revenue was flat and its expenses skyrocketed as it pressed the accelerator on its Optimus robots, AI, and autonomous driving. The end result was a 43% drop in profits.

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