Electric Atlas moves to production

Boston Dynamics says its electric Atlas humanoid is now a product, not a lab project, and every 2026 unit is already spoken for. (bostondynamics.com) The company unveiled the production version of Atlas at CES on January 5, 2026, and said manufacturing would begin immediately at its Boston headquarters. The first fleets are scheduled for Hyundai’s Robotics Metaplant Application Center and Google DeepMind, with additional customers planned for early 2027. (bostondynamics.com) Atlas is a fully electric humanoid built for factory work: Boston Dynamics says it has 56 degrees of freedom, a 7.5-foot reach, and can lift up to 50 kilograms, or 110 pounds. The company also says it can run autonomously, be teleoperated, or be steered by tablet, and swap its own battery at a charging station. (bostondynamics.com) That marks a break from the old Atlas most people knew from viral videos, which used hydraulics and was presented mainly as a research machine. Boston Dynamics said in 2024 that it was retiring the hydraulic Atlas and replacing it with a fully electric platform designed for real-world applications. (bostondynamics.com) Hyundai tied the robot launch to a wider factory plan at CES, saying Atlas is set to be deployed at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America by 2028 for sequencing work. Hyundai also said it wants to use its manufacturing network, Robot Metaplant Application Center, and Software-Defined Factory platform to train, validate, and scale AI robotics. (hyundai.com) Industry coverage of the CES rollout reported Hyundai targeting about 30,000 robots a year from a single factory as part of that scale-up. Hyundai’s own January 5 announcement did not put that number in the main release, but it did say the group would use its manufacturing base to accelerate mass production and expand robotics-as-a-service offerings. (automate.org) (hyundai.com) Google DeepMind is the other early destination because Boston Dynamics wants Atlas to do more than repeat fixed motions. The two companies said on January 5 that they would start joint research this year to combine Atlas with Gemini Robotics models that help robots perceive, reason, use tools, and interact with people. (bostondynamics.com) The sales pitch now is less about backflips than uptime. Boston Dynamics says Atlas is designed for manufacturability, reliability, and serviceability, with water resistance, operation from minus 20 to 40 degrees Celsius, barcode and radio-frequency identification integration, and safety features including human detection and fenceless guarding. (bostondynamics.com) That leaves the next test in factories, not onstage demos. Boston Dynamics has said Hyundai and Google DeepMind get the 2026 fleets, and outside customers are expected to start receiving Atlas in early 2027. (bostondynamics.com)