Based on statistics from Shenzhen Recent Strategy Media’s Industrial Research Institute, there have been over 160 humanoid-robot manufacturers worldwide as of June 2024, of which greater than 60 were in China, greater than 30 in america, and about 40 in Europe. Along with having the most important variety of manufacturers, China stands out for the way in which its EV sector is backing most of those robotics corporations.
Thanks partly to substantial government subsidies and concerted efforts from the tech sector, China has emerged because the world’s largest EV market and manufacturer. In 2024, 54% of cars sold in China were electric or hybrid, compared with 8% within the US. China also became the primary nation to succeed in an annual production of 10 million “recent energy vehicles” (NEVs), a category that features all vehicles powered partly or entirely by electricity.
The EV corporations that achieved this remarkable growth have amassed significant capital, technological capability, and industry prestige. Leading firms like Li Auto, XPeng, and Nio—each founded roughly a decade ago—have develop into household names. Traditional manufacturers which have transitioned to EV production, reminiscent of BYD and Geely, have also emerged as major players within the tech world, due to their engineering skills and the AI-powered driving features they’ve introduced.
Nonetheless, despite the EV market’s rapid expansion, industry profit margins have been on a downward trajectory. From 2018 to 2023, the variety of NEV corporations plummeted from over 480 to roughly 40, owing to a mixture of consolidation and bankruptcy. Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics indicates that since 2021, profit margins in China’s automotive sector have declined from 6.1% to 4.6%. Last yr also saw many Chinese EV corporations do rounds of large-scale layoffs. Intense price and technology wars have ensued, with corporations like BYD offering advanced autonomous-driving features in increasingly reasonably priced models.
The fierce competition has created a pressing need for brand new avenues of financing and growth. “This example compels automakers to hunt cost reductions while crafting narratives that bolster investor confidence—each of that are driving them toward humanoid robotics,” says Yao Jia, a robotics researcher at Aegon Industrial Fund.
Technological overlap is a big factor driving EV corporations into the robotics arena. Each fields depend on capabilities like environmental perception and interaction, using sensors and algorithms that may process external information to guide machine movements.
Lidar and depth cameras, initially developed for autonomous driving, at the moment are being repurposed for robotics. XPeng’s Iron robot uses the identical path-planning and object-recognition algorithms as its EVs, enabling precise navigation in factory environments.
