Four months after the robots entered its car plant, Xiaomi wants humanoids across its own factories within five years. The Wall Street Journal reports XPeng is preparing a global launch of its own robot.
Xiaomi said last week that its humanoid robots now complete factory jobs correctly 98% of the time, after four months of work and adjustment on the plant floor. That is one percentage point below what the company says its human workers achieve.
The robots arrived at Xiaomi's automobile plant in March, assigned to pick up screw nuts and fasten them at designated spots on car floors. During that trial run they operated unsupervised for three consecutive hours, getting through the assembly work with no one stepping in. In that trial the nut-fastening task ran at a 90.2% success rate.
Xiaomi has since given the machines two more jobs on the floor: separating out the side panels that go into center consoles, and collapsing parts bins for recycling. Each of those is running at a 90% success rate.
Founder Lei Jun says the company wants humanoids working in large numbers throughout the plants it owns within the next five years.
XPeng is another Chinese carmaker working on humanoid robots. The Wall Street Journal reported that it plans to take its IRON robot worldwide next year, part of a shift into what the company calls physical AI, and is targeting monthly capacity above 1,000 units by the end of this year.
XPeng revealed plans to introduce humanoid robots at an AI Day event in Guangzhou in November 2025. CEO He Xiaopeng said at the time that he did not know how many robots the company would sell over the next ten years — only that the figure would exceed the number of cars it sells.
XPeng intends to post the machines as sales helpers in its stores across China in the first quarter of 2027, with its outlets outside the country to follow later that same year.