From BYD to Chery, XPeng to Leapmotor, around 20 automakers have invested in the humanoid robot sector. This highlights an industrywide strategic shift toward embodied intelligence, driven by deep synergies between the automotive and robotics industries in technologies, supply chains and manufacturing systems that enable seamless capability migration.
XPeng secured more than USD900 million in the first round of financing for its robotics business, pushing the unit’s post-money valuation above USD6.3 billion. The deal marks the largest single private equity fundraising round in China’s embodied intelligence sector to date, underscoring investor confidence in automakers’ push into next-generation robotics. As a pillar of XPeng’s physical AI strategy, the Iron humanoid robot is built on full-stack in-house hardware and software development. The company plans to start mass production by the end of 2026 and begin official deliveries across China and overseas markets in 2027. He Xiaopeng, CEO of XPeng, projected that the full life-cycle revenue and gross margin per Iron robot will surpass those of the company’s passenger vehicles. Since June, He has also served as CEO of the robotics business.
Li Tengfei, Vice President of Leapmotor, noted that NEV companies, particularly those with full in-house R&D capabilities, are among the best-positioned to develop robots. Leapmotor confirmed that it has formulated plans in the robotics field. The company also expanded its strategic cooperation with FAW to include embodied intelligent robots. Meanwhile, Nio announced that its Autonomous Driving Manager Ren Shaoqing has founded an embodied intelligence startup, with Nio set to make a strategic investment.
The primary driver behind automakers’ enthusiasm for humanoid robots lies in inherent industrial synergies. Core NEV components, including motors, electric controls, sensors and chips, as well as precision manufacturing expertise, are highly transferable to robot development. BYD’s first commercial humanoid robot, Xiaodi, made its global debut earlier in August. An insider close to BYD revealed that Xiaodi heavily reflects the company’s automotive roots, with over 80% of its technologies developed in-house and largely repurposed from BYD’s electric vehicle systems and intelligent driving technologies.
Beyond technical overlap, automakers boast mature supply chain management, rigorous vehicle-grade quality standards and large-scale mass production experience, systematic engineering strengths that most pure-play robotics startups lack. Zhang Guibing, Executive Vice President of Chery Automobile, pointed out that the auto and robotics industries share roughly 70% synergistic potential, particularly in supply chain and manufacturing management. While automobiles focus on intelligent mobility, humanoid robots extend capabilities to physical execution, and the technological boundary between the two is blurring amid advancing automotive intelligence. “More than 85% of the entire robot supply chain overlaps with XPeng’s automotive supply chain. Therefore, we are very confident that XPeng’s robots will achieve industry-leading cost competitiveness,” He said, as reported by the China Daily.
