Exclusive: Li Auto to Develop Humanoid Robots, Actively Recruiting Top Talent and Even Rehiring Former Employees?

On January 26th, Li Xiang, the CEO of Li Auto, held a two - hour online all - staff meeting. According to feedback from multiple internal employees, Li Xiang emphasized that 2026 is the last year for all companies aiming to become AI leaders to enter the automotive market; by 2028 at the latest, L4 autonomous driving will surely be implemented; ultimately, there will be no more than 3 companies globally that layout businesses such as base models, chips, operating systems, and embodied intelligence, and Li Auto will strive to be one of them.

"In the future, Li Auto will further strengthen its brand positioning in embodied intelligence, rather than just creating a'moving home'. Beyond automobiles, Li Auto will definitely develop humanoid robots and will make them available as soon as possible." Next, in order to embrace the new round of AI competition, the company will conduct a new round of organizational reform in R & D. The R & D team will be divided into base model teams, software body teams, hardware body teams, etc. Among them, automobiles, robots, etc. are all classified into the hardware body team.

Meanwhile, Li Xiang said that the company should recruit the best talents and bring back those who left for robot startup companies. Before this, many core technicians in intelligent driving had left the company to start businesses in the field of embodied intelligence. In the second half of 2025, Jia Peng, the former head of autonomous driving R & D at Li Auto, Wang Jiajia, the former mass - production head, and Wang Kai, the former CTO, along with other core executives, founded the embodied intelligence company Zhijian Dynamics, and quickly received investment intentions from multiple leading US - dollar funds and Internet technology companies.

Currently, Li Auto has posted multiple R & D positions for humanoid robots on its official website's social recruitment page. From the recruitment information, it can be seen that its R & D projects almost cover the entire process of humanoid robots from core components to system integration.

At the performance meeting in the third quarter of 2025, Li Xiang publicly stated that the electric vehicle industry has reached a dead - end in competing on parameters, and developing smart terminals often means simply moving mobile applications into cars, which is redundant construction. Therefore, Li Auto has chosen a third path: defining cars as 'embodied intelligence' products, transforming them from simple means of transportation into 'robots' with perception, a brain, nerves, a heart, and a body.

In fact, as early as at the AITALK at the end of 2024, Li Xiang said that Li Auto would definitely develop humanoid robots, but it wasn't the right time yet. However, previously, due to issues such as lagging technology and an immature supply chain for humanoid robots, Li Auto suspended its self - developed humanoid robot project.

But Li Auto's layout in the general robot field has been ongoing. In June 2025, there were also reports that Li Auto established two secondary departments, 'Space Robots' and 'Wearable Robots', both under the management of the product department led by Senior Vice President Fan Haoyu. The smart glasses Livis are the first product.

This article is from the WeChat official account "AI Frontline". Compiled by Hua Wei. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.