Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng sees humanoid robots as a long-term project and is considering large investments that could go up to C¥100-billion (R250-billion), state media reported its CEO as saying on Monday.
CEO He Xiaopeng said on the sidelines of the annual parliamentary session that while the company’s current investment could be considered conservative given how it was in the early stages of entering the sector, it was ready to invest much more, the Securities Times reported.
“Xpeng has been working in the humanoid robot industry for five years, may continue to be in the business for another 20 years, and may invest additional C¥50-billion and even C¥100-billion,” he said, without disclosing the company’s current investment.
The Guangzhou-based EV maker entered the humanoid robot industry in 2020 and unveiled its humanoid Iron in November to rival Tesla Bot.
Xpeng is among an increasing number of car makers betting on humanoids, which Chinese policymakers have signalled as an area they want to see tech breakthroughs in.
Stellantis-backed Leapmotor has set up a robot team of dozens of people, which is currently in the pre-research stage, CEO Zhu Jiangming told reporters on Tuesday. The products are aimed at adoption in industrial scenarios such as Leapmotor factory assemblies where robots can replace human to improve work efficiency.
Read: Apple is shifting its focus to home robots
Car makers could invest C¥1-billion to C¥2-billion/year in applicable scenarios to deploy humanoid robots, according to He, the Economic View report on Tuesday. — Qiaoyi Li and Brenda Goh, (c) 2025 Reuters
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