Chinese language electrical car maker Xpeng sees humanoid robots as a long-term venture and is contemplating massive investments that might go as much as 100 billion yuan ($13.80 billion), state media reported its CEO as saying on Monday.
CEO He Xiaopeng mentioned on the sidelines of the annual parliamentary session that whereas the corporate’s present funding may very well be thought-about conservative given the way it was within the early levels of coming into the sector, it was prepared to speculate rather more, the Securities Occasions reported.
“Xpeng has been working within the humanoid robotic business for 5 years, might proceed to be within the enterprise for an additional 20 years, make investments extra 50 billion yuan and even 100 billion yuan,” He mentioned, with out disclosing the corporate’s present funding.
The Guangzhou-based EV maker entered the humanoid robotic business in 2020 and unveiled its humanoid Iron in November to rival Tesla Bot.
Xpeng is amongst an rising variety of automakers betting on humanoids, which Chinese language policymakers have signalled as an space they need to see tech breakthroughs in.
Stellantis-backed Leapmotor has arrange a robotic group of dozens of individuals, which is at present within the pre-research stage, CEO Zhu Jiangming instructed reporters on Tuesday. The merchandise are geared toward adoption in industrial eventualities corresponding to Leapmotor manufacturing unit assemblies the place robots can exchange human to enhance work effectivity.
Automakers may make investments 1-2 billion yuan per 12 months in relevant eventualities to deploy humanoid robots, in accordance with He, the Financial View report on Tuesday.
