On the 2025 CCTV New Yr Gala final month, a televised spectacle watched by over a billion viewers in China, 16 humanoid robots took the stage. Clad in vibrant floral print jackets, they took half in a signature component of northeastern China’s Yangko dance, twirling purple handkerchiefs in unison with human dancers. However the robots weren’t designed by their maker, Unitree, for this goal. They have been developed for basic use, and they’re already at work in China’s EV sector.
Because the electric-vehicle warfare in China calms down, leaving a couple of established gamers to dominate the sphere, Chinese language EV giants are increasing into humanoid robotics. The shift is pushed by monetary necessity, but in addition by the benefits these firms command within the new sector: sturdy present provide chains and years of expertise constructing cutting-edge tech.
Robots just like the H1 that carried out on the gala have moved into Chinese language EV factories because of partnerships between Unitree and EV makers like BYD and XPeng. However now, China’s EV firms aren’t simply utilizing these humanoid robots—they’re constructing them. GAC Group, a state-owned carmaker, has developed the GoMate robotic to put in wires in automobiles on its manufacturing line. The corporate plans to mass-produce GoMate by 2026 to be used in factories and warehouses. Nio, an EV startup identified for its battery-swap community, has partnered with the robotic maker UBTech on high of forming its personal in-house R&D workforce to construct humanoid robots.
In line with statistics from Shenzhen New Technique Media’s Industrial Analysis Institute, there have been over 160 humanoid-robot producers worldwide as of June 2024, of which greater than 60 have been in China, greater than 30 in the US, and about 40 in Europe. Along with having the biggest variety of producers, China stands out for the way in which its EV sector is backing most of those robotics firms.
Thanks partially to substantial authorities subsidies and concerted efforts from the tech sector, China has emerged because the world’s largest EV market and producer. In 2024, 54% of automobiles offered in China have been electrical or hybrid, in contrast with 8% within the US. China additionally turned the primary nation to succeed in an annual manufacturing of 10 million “new power autos” (NEVs), a class that features all autos powered partly or completely by electrical energy.
The EV firms that achieved this outstanding development have amassed vital capital, technological capability, and trade status. Main companies like Li Auto, XPeng, and Nio—every based roughly a decade in the past—have develop into family names. Conventional producers which have transitioned to EV manufacturing, comparable to BYD and Geely, have additionally emerged as main gamers within the tech world, because of their engineering expertise and the AI-powered driving options they’ve launched.
Nonetheless, regardless of the EV market’s speedy growth, trade revenue margins have been on a downward trajectory. From 2018 to 2023, the variety of NEV firms plummeted from over 480 to roughly 40, owing to a mixture of consolidation and chapter. Knowledge from China’s Nationwide Bureau of Statistics signifies that since 2021, revenue margins in China’s automotive sector have declined from 6.1% to 4.6%. Final yr additionally noticed many Chinese language EV firms do rounds of large-scale layoffs. Intense worth and know-how wars have ensued, with firms like BYD providing superior autonomous-driving options in more and more reasonably priced fashions.
The fierce competitors has created a urgent want for brand new avenues of financing and development. “This example compels automakers to hunt price reductions whereas crafting narratives that bolster investor confidence—each of that are driving them towards humanoid robotics,” says Yao Jia, a robotics researcher at Aegon Industrial Fund.
Technological overlap is a big issue driving EV firms into the robotics area. Each fields depend on capabilities like environmental notion and interplay, utilizing sensors and algorithms that may course of exterior data to information machine actions.
Lidar and depth cameras, initially developed for autonomous driving, are actually being repurposed for robotics. XPeng’s Iron robotic makes use of the identical path-planning and object-recognition algorithms as its EVs, enabling exact navigation in manufacturing unit environments.
Battery know-how is one other crossover space. GAC’s GoMate robotic makes use of EV-derived battery packs to attain a six-hour run time, making it appropriate for prolonged manufacturing unit shifts.
China’s intensive provide chain infrastructure helps these developments. In line with a report by Morgan Stanley, China controls 63% of the important thing firms within the world provide chain for humanoid-robot parts, significantly in actuator components and uncommon earth processing. This dominance allows Chinese language producers to supply humanoid robots at decrease costs than their worldwide rivals. Unitree’s H1 is priced at $90,000—lower than half the price of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, a comparable mannequin.
“The availability chain benefit might give China an higher hand when the robots hit the purpose of mass manufacturing,” says Yao.
Nonetheless, challenges persist in areas like synthetic intelligence and chip growth, that are nonetheless dominated by firms past China’s borders, comparable to Nvidia, TSMC, Palantir, and Qualcomm. “Home humanoid-robot analysis largely focuses on {hardware} and software situations. In comparison with worldwide counterparts, I really feel there may be inadequate consideration to the maturity and reliability of management software program,” says Jiayi Wang, a researcher on the Beijing Institute for Normal Synthetic Intelligence.
Within the meantime, the Chinese language authorities is selling automation via initiatives just like the Robotics+ motion plan, which goals to double the nation’s manufacturing robotic density by 2025 relative to 2020 ranges. Moreover, some provincial governments are providing analysis and growth subsidies masking as much as 30% of venture prices to encourage innovation in automation applied sciences. It’s changing into clear that China is now dedicated to changing into a worldwide chief in robotics and automation, simply because it did with EVs.
Wang Xingxing, the CEO of Unitree Robots, mentioned this effectively in a current interview to native media: “Robotics is the place EVs have been a decade in the past—a trillion-yuan battlefield ready to be claimed.”
