MANY MINDEDBYD to show its first humanoid robot in August
BYD confirmed to China Securities Journal that it will unveil its first humanoid robot in August, at its 'Di Space' network of offline experience venues. A teaser image appeared July 25 from BYD's Zhengzhou venue. The company set up a dedicated embodied-AI team in late 2024 under its 15th Business Division, and executive vice president Stella Li has described plans for an open platform producing both in-house and co-developed robots.
BYD is not alone. Chery's Aimoga brand has begun selling humanoid robots to consumers, SAIC-GM has put wheeled humanoids on battery assembly lines, and Xpeng plans to start mass production of its Iron robot by year-end. A carmaker's entry matters because the skills that make EVs cheap — batteries, motors, actuators, and high-volume manufacturing — are much the same skills humanoid robots need.
That overlap is where the abundance argument sits. If firms that already build millions of vehicles turn their supply chains toward robots, the per-unit cost of a general-purpose machine could fall the way EV and battery costs did. Affordable labor robots would touch care work, logistics, and manufacturing — needs where human labor is the main expense.
What to watch is whether August brings a working prototype or a concept; the article's own read is that a physical prototype is likely. Li's hope that every BYD store eventually holds two or three robots, with robot sales advisors ready in one to two years, is an executive expectation, not a shipped product.
Source: CnEVPost