CINEVE 2026 | Tesla Bets on 'Optimus': A Robot Empire Supported by Chinese Suppliers

Chapter 1: The Power Restructuring Behind Tesla's Shift, Not Just a Technological Upgrade

Tesla is undergoing a strategically underrated shift: it is no longer just selling "better cars" to more people, but is attempting to rewrite the question of "who owns the future industrial infrastructure."

In the short term, Musk is reallocating resources—becoming more cautious with the production pace of certain models, while channeling massive capital into AI computing power, humanoid robots like Optimus, and related production line transformations. However, if all of this is merely seen as "company diversification," the key point will be missed.

The automotive industry is essentially a scale-based industry, where success or failure is determined by cost, capacity, supply chain efficiency, and distribution channels. In contrast, the robotics and AI industry is fundamentally an "intelligent entity industry," where success or failure is determined by computing power, data, software architecture, execution capabilities, and ecosystem integration.

Tesla's ambition is to upgrade itself from being "the world's most successful electric vehicle company" to "one of the world's most important intelligent entity platforms." This means that it no longer just needs world-class factories, but also world-class supply networks, engineering systems, and technological foundations. When Optimus stands at the center of the stage, what the audience sees is a walking machine, but the larger context is that Tesla is embedding itself into the future factories, logistics, retail, manufacturing, and even service industries through robots. Once successful, it will not just gain product profits, but also systemic power.

Chapter 2: The Chinese Supply Chain: From Behind-the-Scenes Supporter to Core Battleground

Looking at Optimus in detail, it is almost a highly condensed intelligent electric vehicle: high-energy-density batteries provide endurance, miniaturized motors and reducers drive the joints, precise transmission systems determine mobility, multi-modal sensors and vision systems handle perception, and control units and actuators carry out decision-making—only the "wheels" are replaced with "legs" and "robotic arms."

This means that Tesla is not creating an entirely new industry chain from scratch, but rather elevating and reusing the existing electric vehicle supply system.

Over the past decade, no country has been more deeply embedded in Tesla's manufacturing system than China: the Shanghai Gigafactory has driven a massive local component ecosystem, ranging from battery materials to precision machining, from electronic components to structural parts, forming a highly integrated and responsive supply network.

As a result, the advancement of Optimus essentially pushes the Chinese supply chain from the "backstage of automotive" to the "frontline of robotics." For some companies, this represents a historic leap—high-precision gears, harmonic reducers, robotic joints, advanced battery materials, lightweight structural components, and AI vision hardware may all transition from "automotive supplies" to "core components of future intelligent entities."

But for another group of companies, this is a more brutal selection: If you are only good at low-value-added processing, lack core craftsmanship, and don't have a system-level understanding, then the demand for you in the age of robotics will not increase, but may actually shrink. For the first time, the Chinese supply chain faces not the question of "who is cheaper," but "who is indispensable." This is the crucial leap from being a manufacturing powerhouse to becoming an engineering powerhouse, and it marks a watershed moment where both risks and opportunities coexist.

Because of this, on March 13th, Beijing will host an extremely important grand conference, and almost every heavyweight guest from the industries you can think of will deliver cutting-edge speeches. The 2026 China International Automotive New Energy Supply Chain Conference and Offshore Forum, initiated by Dr. Wei Lan-de, former BMW President, is truly worth looking forward to—not for any single technological point, but for:

Under the wave of digitalization and intelligence, what will the "underlying logic" of the next phase of China's automotive supply chain look like?

As more and more companies realize that: 

The determining factor is no longer "who makes the cars," but "who defines how cars are made," the battle for the restructuring of the automotive supply chain may just be beginning.

Conference Information 

• Date: March 13, 2026

• Location: Capital International Exhibition & Convention Center, Shunyi, Beijing, China

More guest and agenda information is being released continuously. If you are interested in the future direction of China's new energy supply chain, this is a conference worth paying attention to in advance.

Chapter 3: Orders, Profits, and Pace—An Asymmetric Game

Even standing at the forefront, Chinese suppliers are far from being in a position of comfort. Tesla's business style ensures that this game will inevitably be highly asymmetric: on one hand, it continuously releases massive order expectations, attracting suppliers to increase their investments; on the other hand, it is known for extreme price cuts, efficiency, and rapid iterations, keeping suppliers in a state of "high-intensity operation with low safety margins" for the long term.

The characteristics of robot components are: high R&D costs, long validation cycles, slow yield improvement, and massive upfront capital expenditures, which are extremely unfriendly to small and medium-sized manufacturers with weak financial strength—many companies may collapse due to cash flow pressures before they even receive stable orders.

At the same time, Tesla places a strong emphasis on modularity and replaceability in its design, meaning it rarely allows a single supplier to monopolize a key position for the long term. Instead, it always keeps "alternatives" in place to avoid being "choked" by any single company. Under this structure, even if a supplier is technologically advanced, it is difficult to gain long-term bargaining power. Suppliers can only maintain their position by continually upgrading their capabilities.

What's more complex is that geopolitical factors are pushing Tesla to gradually diversify its supply chain layout, which could put some Chinese companies in a situation of "short-term benefits, long-term uncertainty"—there may be plenty of orders, but the stability may not be high. Therefore, this competition is not just about technological rivalry; it is a comprehensive contest of endurance, capital, organizational ability, and strategic judgment. The ones who will emerge victorious in the end are often not the fastest, but those who can endure the long-term high-intensity battle.

Conclusion: When Robots Stand Up, Who Will Be the True Rule-Maker?

The historical significance of Optimus may not depend on whether it can be mass-produced in the next two years, but on how it has preemptively revealed the outline of the next-generation industrial landscape: platforms define direction, software determines the ceiling, and hardware carries out reality. On this chessboard, Musk controls the top-level narrative, algorithms, and computing power; Tesla controls system integration, product rhythm, and industry standards; while the Chinese supply chain controls implementation capabilities, engineering efficiency, and scale manufacturing.

But the issue is—mastering manufacturing does not equate to mastering the future. If Chinese companies remain in the role of "excellent executors," no matter how well they perform, they will still be the chosen ones; only by forming irreplaceability in key materials, core components, underlying processes, and even certain sub-standards can they gradually upgrade from participants to co-creators of the rules. The future competition will not just look at who has larger output, but at who has a say in key points.

The moment Optimus stands up, it will be both a symbol of the robotics era and a microcosm of global supply chain restructuring—some companies will leap forward, some will be eliminated, some regions will rise, and some will decline. Ultimately, the question is not "Will Tesla succeed?" but: In this transformation, will the Chinese supply chain merely bear others' future, or begin to write its own?