Xiaomi Tests Humanoids on EV Assembly Line
Xiaomi is now testing its humanoid robots on its electric vehicle production line. The move highlights a major trend in AI-powered manufacturing, focusing on robots that can adapt to environments and tools designed for humans. This real-world application is a significant step beyond lab demonstrations for the consumer electronics giant.
The humanoid is named CyberOne and was first unveiled in August 2022. It stands 177cm tall, weighs 52kg, and features 21 degrees of freedom, with each hand capable of carrying up to 1.5kg. The robot's AI can allegedly recognize 45 distinct human emotions and 85 types of environmental sounds. This testing is taking place at Xiaomi's highly automated EV factory in Beijing. The facility is designed for immense efficiency, with the capability to produce a new SU7 electric vehicle every 76 seconds. The factory also features a solar roof that generates 16.4 million kWh of clean energy annually. The SU7 is Xiaomi's first vehicle, officially launched in March 2024. The initial production run was highly successful, with deliveries of the first-generation model surpassing 381,000 units before an updated version was announced for April 2026. Xiaomi's move mirrors a broader industry trend of deploying humanoids in automotive manufacturing. BMW has been a prominent early adopter, using Figure AI's robots in its Spartanburg, USA plant and testing Hexagon bots in Germany. Mercedes-Benz is also piloting humanoids with robotics firm Apptronik, while Tesla continues development of its own Optimus robot for its Gigafactories. Automotive plants are considered the first market where humanoid robots can be deployed at a significant scale. These controlled industrial environments offer structured workflows and a clearer return on investment for automating repetitive, labor-intensive tasks originally designed for humans. The effort is part of Xiaomi's vertically integrated technology strategy, which spans from consumer electronics to vehicles. The SU7 itself features a self-developed autonomous driving system, Xiaomi Pilot, which uses two NVIDIA Orin chips and a sensor suite including LiDAR, cameras, and radar.
