Robots that walk and talk are coming to car factories

SPARTANBURG: At a BMW factory in South Carolina, a human-shaped robot with a screen for a face recently stepped from a charging station toward a stack of green plastic boxes. It grasped an auto part from one of the boxes, pivoted, placed the part.

The robot’s slow, stiff movements suggested a worker with a bad hangover rather than a technological revolution. Automakers have used robots for decades, but they are usually powerful, one-armed machines that are fixed in place and perform repetitive tasks like welding body frames or.

What Happened

Now, most major automakers are betting that robots designed to resemble humans, known as humanoids, will usher in a new wave of automation and efficiency. Equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), they are expected to move around and do tasks now done by.

• That’s not a problem with Hyundai’s transport robots, said Jerry Roach, a senior manager in charge of general assembly at the Georgia factory, which began producing cars in 2024.

• In 2021, Hyundai acquired Boston Dynamics, which is developing humanoid robots that the carmaker plans to use initially for arranging components in a specified order for humans to install in vehicles.

• They are more flexible than the robots typically found in factories, but decidedly not human shaped.

Key Details

Unlike most of the robots now in use, humanoids would respond to voice commands and theoretically solve problems and react to unforeseen events. They would never take a lunch break, join a union or require health insurance.

• General Motors is experimenting with what the company calls cobots, short for “collaborative robots,” which have arms and hands but no legs.

• Not all automakers are on the humanoid robot bandwagon.

• “The more you study the human hand, the more you realise how amazing hands are,” Musk said.

Why It Matters

To optimists, robots could rescue US manufacturing by increasing productivity, solving shortages of skilled workers and giving Western carmakers a fighting chance at competing with Chinese rivals that enjoy lower costs. Boring but important jobs like sorting parts would be done by.

• Among the most confounding is how to duplicate the dexterity and sensitivity of the human hand – a problem that has long stumped robotics experts.

• But he has also acknowledged challenges.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by The Star as more details emerge