Tesla Optimus Hand

Tesla's in-house dexterous hand for its Optimus humanoid robot; the third generation has 22 degrees of freedom.

The Tesla Optimus hand is the dexterous hand Tesla designed in-house for its Optimus humanoid robot. According to Wikipedia, the second-generation Optimus hand, shown in 2023, had 11 degrees of freedom; the third generation, announced in 2024, has 22. An international patent application made public in April 2026 shows a redesigned hand that moves most of the motors into the forearm, with each finger driven by three thin tendons routed through the wrist — cutting the hand's own weight and the impact load it carries — and uses a routing structure at the wrist to reduce crosstalk between wrist rotation and finger movement. As of September 2026, the complete third-generation Optimus has not been formally released, so production specifications should be treated as provisional until Tesla confirms them.

ExampleAccording to the public patent, each finger is pulled by three tendons routed from actuators in the forearm, with almost no motors inside the palm or fingers themselves.

Also called

Optimus Hand

Related

Dexterous Hand · Tendon-Driven Actuation · Tesla Optimus · Tesla Optimus V3 (Optimus Gen 3) · Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Actuation (Proximal Actuator Placement) · Tesla (Optimus) Supply Chain

Sources

Optimus (robot) - Wikipedia
The Forearm Is the New Hand: Inside Tesla's Optimus V3 Patents

As of

2026-09