Tesla's Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, with structural assembly now only about five column grids away from the building's north perimeter beam. This milestone, captured in drone footage released Thursday, signals that the facility is entering its final construction stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.

What Does the Latest Construction Progress Tell Us About Tesla's Timeline?

The new drone video from site observer Joe Tegtmeyer shows concrete already being poured on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. This parallel work approach, where steel rises at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, mirrors the scheduling strategy Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and is designed to save time before the plant's targeted 2027 production start.

The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas's North Campus that will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, stretching over 4,000 feet while sitting somewhat narrower. Elon Musk has pegged the long-term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.

How Is Tesla Integrating Chip Production Into the Optimus Factory Strategy?

The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus: Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two operations.

However, the Terafab project has encountered a legal obstacle. Tesla and SpaceX are now asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company's trademark. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for "Tera-Fab" since 2021, sent a cease and desist letter in May after Tesla filed trademark applications for "Terafab" and "Tesla Terafab".

Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla's artificial intelligence computing needs, and SpaceX's orbital data center ambitions. The companies contend that no reasonable consumer would confuse this massive semiconductor manufacturing facility with TERA-print's tabletop lab printer used for biological and sensor research.

How to Track Tesla's Optimus Production Readiness

• Monitor Fremont Pilot Output: The smaller pilot line at Tesla's Fremont, California factory began mass producing the current generation three robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate real-world data Tesla needs to refine the robot's software before Giga Texas ramps up.
• Follow Construction Milestones: Tesla is using overlapping construction phases, with steel assembly progressing at one end of the site while concrete is being poured and rebar laid at the other, allowing the company to compress the overall timeline without sacrificing structural integrity.
• Track Supply Chain Integration: By locating both Optimus robot assembly and Terafab chip production on the same Giga Texas campus, Tesla eliminates shipping delays and lead times between manufacturing stages, reducing costs and improving production efficiency.
• Watch Legal Developments: The trademark dispute with TERA-print will be decided by a federal judge in Austin, but the underlying manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain integration remain on track regardless of the outcome.

Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer's recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating the 2027 deadline. Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high-volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027.

The trademark dispute with TERA-print, while a complication, appears unlikely to derail the broader Optimus and Terafab strategy. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin, but the underlying manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain integration remain on track.