BYD's humanoid robot will be put into service in August.
BYD's humanoid robot project has reached a clear implementation milestone.
On July 28, BYD officially confirmed to a reporter from The Paper that its humanoid robot product will make its official debut in August. Earlier, BYD released a promotional poster for a humanoid robot at the "Di Space | Zhengzhou Pavilion", which stated, "At the beginning of August, a new friend wants to meet you."
Affected by this news, BYD's A-shares rose rapidly during intraday trading, once increasing by more than 2%; in terms of the sector, the humanoid robot concept fluctuated and climbed, Mingxin Xuteng secured two consecutive daily limit-ups, Swancor Advanced Materials rose by more than 9%, and Beijing Automation Control, Sanhua Intelligent Controls, Topstar, LiXing, and Tianqi all followed the upward trend.
Public information shows that "Di Space" is an offline immersive brand experience terminal created by BYD. Different from the single sales function of traditional 4S stores, this space focuses on brand display, product experience, user interaction and technology demonstration, serving as the debut venue for BYD's new technologies and new products; the "Zhengzhou Pavilion" that released the aforementioned preheating poster is the first "Di Space", with a total of four floors and a total construction area of about 15,000 square meters.
"The goal is to place two to three robots in each dealership outlet." Li Ke, Executive Vice President of BYD, once stated that the company plans to deploy humanoid robots to its dealer network for customer reception and product demonstration. "These robots can not only explain vehicle models and demonstrate functions, but also create a more attractive showroom atmosphere." At that time, she revealed that such sales assistant robots are expected to achieve commercial implementation within the next one to two years.
While BYD is about to debut its first humanoid robot, the commercialization process of Xpeng Motors' related products has also entered the mass production stage. At present, Xpeng's humanoid robot has started small-batch trial production at its Guangzhou factory, and the mass production production line has entered the final stage of joint debugging and finalization. According to the enterprise's plan, the robot will achieve official mass production in 2026 and be launched to the global market in 2027, also focusing on commercial service scenarios such as in-store shopping guidance and product explanation. Leveraging the software and hardware R&D, AI large model, intelligent manufacturing and supply chain capabilities accumulated in the automotive industry, Xpeng has realized the reuse of its technical system. At the same time, existing automotive stores are not only the first application scenarios for the robots, but also can continuously output real operational data to support product iteration and optimization, reducing the cost of technology implementation and mass production trial and error.
For automotive original equipment manufacturers, the application scenarios of humanoid robots are not limited to commercial services. According to public information, among the OEMs that have clearly laid out the humanoid robot field earlier, brands such as Seres, Chery, and FAW Group have respectively focused on directions such as industrial testing, commercial vending, and multi-scenario technology layout, and have completed product debuts or scenario trials.
The collective deployment of humanoid robots by car enterprises cannot be separated from the support of national policies and the continuous improvement of industrial fundamentals. In June this year, the "Notice on Jointly Launching the 2026 Special Action for Humanoid Robots and Embodied Intelligence Real-Scene Practical Training" jointly issued by the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the General Office of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission clearly proposed that by the end of 2026, key products such as humanoid robots will take the lead in completing application verification and normal deployment in a number of representative scenarios, opening the "operation mode"; more than 100 high-value application scenarios will be refined and formed to further enrich the embodied intelligence application spectrum, driving the formation of a ten-thousand-unit-scale implementation capacity.
The latest industrial data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that new driving forces in China's robot industry continue to be released. In the first half of this year, the proportion of the added value of China's above-scale equipment manufacturing industry and high-tech manufacturing industry continued to increase, and the output of industrial robots and service robots increased by 28% and 11.9% year-on-year respectively. In the field of intelligent robots, China's global sales share of quadruped robots is close to 70%, and the number of humanoid robot complete machine products exceeds more than 400, accounting for more than half of the global share. The industrial scale and technical strength are firmly in the global first echelon, providing a solid industrial foundation for car enterprises' cross-border layout.
"Currently, the humanoid robot industry is at a critical stage from technological breakthroughs to large-scale commercialization, and 2026 may become an important window for mass production implementation and scenario verification." Wanlian Securities stated in a research report. The industry generally believes that automobiles and humanoid robots have a high degree of technical homology, and car enterprises have natural advantages in entering this track.
This article is from the WeChat official account "The Paper", author: Xu Hao, published with authorization from 36Kr.