BYD’s Bold Plan To Beat Tesla In The Humanoid Robot Race

How Are Humanoids Key To BYD’s Business Strategy?

BYD has developed an understanding of how humanoids can help its business by putting third-party models to work in its factories.

Many of these are Walker S1 units supplied through its partnership with Chinese manufacturer UBTech. Within its factories, including plants in Shenzhen and Changsha, they handle tasks including sorting and moving components, handling pallets, applying decals and operating tools like electric screwdrivers. They also conduct visual inspections with a reported accuracy rate of 99%.

With around 200 robots in operation, including models from other manufacturers, including Unitree, it’s believed to operate the world’s largest humanoid workforce.

In factories, humanoids are designed to carry out the work that can’t be done by the robotic arms in common use since the 1960s. This includes repetitive heavy lifting, with existing models capable of working 10-hour shifts between charging breaks.

After acquiring an in-depth understanding of the industry's needs for humanoids, BYD has taken the next logical step and begun building its own.

Its plan is to initially deploy its own humanoids in sales and customer support roles across its network of dealerships and retail outlets. From there, it will springboard into consumer sales, positioning its robots as competitors to Tesla’s Optimus.

It’s even created its own robotic humanoid research and development division to help it do this.

BYD’s strategy is to deliver humanoid robots into our homes and workplaces at scale. This will make them early leaders in an emerging market, some believe will quickly grow to equal the size of the market for cars.

What Can We Learn From BYD’s Humanoid Strategy?

BYD’s pivot from EV maker to humanoids was strategic and designed to address several core business challenges.

Firstly, it needs its manufacturing plants to become faster and more efficient to compete with counterparts in China, Europe and the US.

Secondly, it’s a solution to labor shortages in China, a country facing a shortfall of around 30 million skilled industrial workers.

Thirdly, putting robots to work on factory floors meant they could collect valuable real-world performance data at massive scale. This allowed it to learn much more about the way robots co-work with humans and what sort of roles they really create value in.

From there, moving into providing robots to help others solve their own problems is a natural next step. This is similar to how web giants like Amazon and Google commoditized their own infrastructure after using it to build their core businesses.

BYD’s stated vision is three humanoids in every home, to cook, clean and serve as companions. By positioning itself to own the full journey from development to mass production and retail, it’s hoping we will want to buy all three from them.

With average unit cost dropping rapidly, BYD’s strategic play is to become the manufacturer most ready to move at speed when the time is right to scale production.

So What’s Next?

For business leaders, professionals and anyone interested in how robots will change the way we live, the lesson is that humanoids are coming.

Widespread, large-scale deployments may still be some years off, but companies like BYD are putting the infrastructure in place to make it possible.

The AI brains humanoids use to “think” with are becoming more sophisticated and hardware costs are falling.

The road BYD is traveling ultimately leads to a world where AI automates physical as well as digital work, reflecting its belief that humanoids will be the next evolutionary leap forward for both industrial and consumer technology.