Figure vs Tesla Optimus

Figure AI says its BotQ facility has scaled Figure 03 production from one unit per day to one unit per hour in under 120 days, with more than 350 third-generation robots and over 9,000 actuators across 10+ SKUs built to date. The company reports a 99.3% first-pass yield on its battery line and over 80% first-pass yield on full robots, supported by 150+ networked workstations, 50+ in-process inspection points, and 80+ end-of-line tests.

Shift, an AI training data startup, is offering free home cleanings in New York in exchange for first-person camera footage captured by a camera-equipped hat worn by the cleaner, with the data used to train household robots. The company says expansions to San Francisco, London, Zurich, and Munich are coming "very soon," and that it already pays tens of thousands of people across 15 countries to record activities through its app.

Figure signed a commercial agreement with Catalyst Brands to deploy humanoid robots across the retailer's distribution network, starting at a distribution center in Reno, Nevada. Catalyst Brands is the holding company for JCPenney, Aéropostale, and Brooks Brothers.

Brett Adcock's AI hardware startup Hark raised over $700 million in a Series A round valuing the company at $6 billion. Hark is building a vertically integrated family of AI hardware devices with co-developed models and interfaces; notably, Hark's models are already being trained on Adcock's Figure AI robots, creating a cross-company embodied-AI data loop.

A new Texas DMV registry, launched alongside a state law that took effect May 28 requiring AV operators to disclose fleet and safety data, shows Waymo with 577 registered autonomous vehicles in Texas, followed by Avride at 317, Nuro at 47, and Tesla at 42. On the trucking side, Aurora has 91 self-driving trucks registered, Gatik 64, Kodiak 33, and Waabi 13.

A Reuters investigation based on interviews with nine former Tesla data labelers, a former self-driving engineer, and 11 traffic-safety researchers found that Tesla's "10x safer than human" FSD safety claim relied on comparing Tesla airbag-deployment crashes to federal tow-away crash data, a mismatch a University of Michigan researcher recalculated to roughly 3x when normalized. The report also documents that Tesla extensively pre-mapped its Austin robotaxi zone and the Warner Bros. Cybercab demo route, doubling its Utah labeling staff to about 300 ahead of the June 2025 Austin launch, which still operates around 20 unsupervised vehicles.

BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu announced at a Shenzhen press conference that the company's "God's Eye" advanced driver-assistance system will be priced at 12,000 yuan (US$1,770) and that BYD will cover any costs from traffic accidents that occur while the hands-off system is activated. Wang did not give a commercialization timetable; he also said BYD has built more than 6,100 flash-charging stations.

Tesla's unsupervised Robotaxi fleet has dropped to 20 active vehicles (14 in Austin, 3 in Dallas, 3 in Houston) from 25 cumulative in late April, according to Robotaxi Tracker data. The total Tesla ride-hailing fleet including supervised Bay Area FSD vehicles has fallen to 34 active units, down from 165 in April, with Bay Area operations collapsing from 107 to 9 vehicles.

The service suspension comes as Waymo has also paused operations in Atlanta and San Antonio after its robotaxis drove into flooded streets.