China's EV makers shift gears to focus on humanoids as car market slows
Xpeng said Tuesday it plans to begin mass production of its robots by the end of this year, starting in its own stores and business venues. Next year, the company plans to launch the robots to the broader market in China and overseas.
Key takeaways
- On September 8 2026 Xpeng announced that its first advanced general‑purpose humanoid robot, IRON, autonomously walked off a newly commissioned production line in Guangzhou, marking the company’s move from prototype demonstrations to volume manufacturing. The line achieves more than 80 % core‑process automation; IRON itself has 76 degrees of freedom (21 per hand), three in‑house Turing AI chips that deliver up to 2,250 TOPS for on‑board decision making, and can perform complex tasks without remote teleoperation. Xpeng plans to begin mass production by the end of 2026, targeting 1,000 units per month with a goal of one million units a year by 2030.
- At the same time, NVIDIA’s Science Robotics paper introduced SONIC, an AI controller that translates VR, video, and language commands into precise humanoid motor actions, thereby expanding the motion repertoire of such robots. China now accounts for 97 % of global humanoid robot shipments; domestic production lines capable of 10,000 units a year are already operating, and 62,500 units are expected to be shipped within China in 2026.
- In Europe, a new startup has secured 34 000 pre‑orders and a $2.4 billion pipeline, positioning it to scale production to hundreds of thousands of units.
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Xpeng said Tuesday it plans to begin mass production of its robots by the end of this year, starting in its own stores and business venues. Next year, the company plans to launch the robots to the broader market in China and overseas.
Automakers also know how to build things at scale, Lei said. Producing thousands of robots that are reliable and serviceable is what Chinese automakers already do every day, she added.
"Chinese players are the ones actually pushing it into daily use," Lei said, noting that in-house deployment makes it easier and cheaper for the automakers to collect data — which is critical for humanoid commercialization.
Xiaomi, a consumer electronics company that only launched its first electric car in 2024, started testing humanoid robots at its factory this year. BYD can also deploy robots in its factories, Counterpoint's Li pointed out. But he said over the medium-to-long term, Geely and Xpeng could better capture the benefits of diversifying beyond cars, pointing to Xpeng's greater emphasis on its physical AI strategy.
Whether humanoid robots can generate demand beyond automakers' own operations remains an open-ended question. Lei said Jefferies has yet to see firm external orders from the automakers it covers or clear guidance on external customers and robotics revenue for next year. While there are similarities to how electric-car maker Tesla is developing its Optimus humanoid in the U.S., Elon Musk's company, the Chinese automakers' push into robotics have their own advantages, said Xiaoyi Lei, senior research analyst at Jefferies Hong Kong.
She pointed out that Chinese automakers can reuse a significant portion of their supply chain — Xpeng, for example, can use 85% of its motors, chips and smart driving software for humanoids. The robots can then be immediately deployed in the automakers' stores and factories, rather than having to wait for consumers to buy them, she added.
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