State of Robotics: Q1 2026

The last few weeks there has been increasing chatter online about the first factories operating completely human-less before 2030. A, for some dystopian, future in which AI, Robotics and digitalization combine to perform all tasks that go into manufacturing vehicles or other goods.

While the 2030 timeline seems overly agressive, it is historically correct that automation has the simplest and quickest return on investment in the vast manufacturing facilities of automotive players. Almost half of the biggest players already have advanced pilot projects using humanoid robots picking up part of the workload.

While I realize the social impact of these changes could potentially be huge, we should also be honest with ourselves. No one but the very richest 1% of 1% can still afford vehicles that are completely built by hand. As workers the future might look scary, as consumers we are sure to reap the rewards.

The grandpa of robotic firms must be Boston Dynamics. I mean, it was spun out of MIT in 1992, positively ancient in technology land. Even when Hyundai bought it in 2021 its valuation was relatively modest and people were thinking what they would do with a technology that was only good for useless dancing robots. Boy can the outlook change in only a few years time.

The company has announced that it will integrate a whopping 30.000 robots into its production process by 2028. Quite a few of these will be the Atlas version which stands at 1.9 m tall and about 90 kg. It can also carry up to 50 kg, of which 30 kg over a sustained period of time. The alpha male in me is thinking, that's impressive but not inhumanely so! I could imagine doing that with the proper training. However, it can also perform these things in temperatures between -20° and 40°C without any change of wardrobe😖.

So ok, they can perform heavier tasks in more diverse circumstances than a human being. But can they manage the enormous array of manipulations that we are capable of, from picking up a heavy box to a paperclip? Well, Hyundai confirms that that's where the biggest investment has gone. Atlas has electric actuators, built in-house by another Hyundai company, that allow it to perform very intricate tasks as easily as the brute force ones.

So a robot that can do everything for as long as their batteries last, about four hours, without complaining or unionizing...sounds like the winds of change will not be dying down anytime soon in automotive manufacturing.