Neither Tesla nor Toyota: the first humanoid robot is already being mass-produced by the last company you’d expect.

08/09/2026 13:30

Updated to

08/09/2026 15:46

One of Elon Musk’s (many) major unfinished projects was the humanoid robot Optimus, the CEO of Tesla, who once said they would build 10,000 of them by the end of 2026. Like many other promises, such as the final production of the new Tesla Roadster, this has also gone unfulfilled.

On the other hand, Toyota is also developing its first humanoid robot, named CUE7. However, it does not plan to mass-produce it in the short term, let alone sell it. This is quite different from Volkswagen’s surprising Chinese partner, which has just made history by producing the first mass-produced humanoid robot in existence.

Xpeng: Volkswagen’s surprising key partner that already manufactures a humanoid robot

While Volkswagen plans to lay off 50,000 people in Europe and even close SEAT—what will happen to their workers?—its business continues to grow in China, just like Toyota’s, by producing cheap SUVs that could enter the European market. It does this in partnership with Xpeng, with whom it developed a dedicated platform for its Chinese vehicles.

But this key partner of Volkswagen, founded in 2014, is much more than just a manufacturer of (good) electric cars present in Spain: at Híbridosyeléctricos, we’ve already tested its best-selling SUV, the G6, and its sedan, the P7+, which has a range of 530 km—a direct competitor to the Tesla Model 3.

If we have known about Xpeng’s plan to manufacture its humanoid robot IRON for months now, the Chinese company affiliated with Volkswagen has just taken a giant leap forward. Or rather, its first humanoid robot IRON has done so, stepping out of the brand’s mass production line in Guangzhou on its own accord last September 7th.

In this way, Volkswagen’s key Chinese partner far surpasses Tesla and even Toyota. In fact, Xpeng plans to start mass-producing this humanoid robot by the end of 2026, aiming for an initial production volume of 1,000 units per month by 2027—when it will begin selling in China and abroad—and to increase production according to market demand.

"The production lines for this robot were created from scratch, with no prior precedents," explained He Xiaopeng, XPeng’s president and CEO, adding that "today’s step is small, but Xpeng is building production lines for a completely new product."

What does the world’s first mass-produced humanoid robot look like?

IRON already surprised many during its unveiling at the end of last year. Its movements were so smooth that some even accused Xpeng of hiding a human under a complex disguise as a humanoid robot.

In fact, Xpeng has utilized 80% of the AI found in its electric vehicles and applied it to this robot, which features up to 76 “joints” throughout its body and 21 in each hand, accounting for its smooth movements. This robot is equipped with three internal AI chips that provide up to 2,250 TOPS of effective computing power, enabling it, according to Volkswagen’s partner, to perform “complex tasks autonomously without remote operation.”

Xpeng’s goal is for IRON to soon become “a general-purpose humanoid robot platform that supports a wide range of applications” and to continue improving through learning from its operations in the real world.

In fact, Xpeng plans for the first units of its humanoid robot to “work” as assistants in its car dealerships by 2027.