Dongfeng is joining the robot race. The Chinese carmaker says its humanoid robot, called Xiaodong, will enter its factories in October to handle sorting and quality inspection tasks, ahead of small-batch trial production by the end of 2026, CnEVPost reports.
The company is setting itself an aggressive development target after that. “We aim to bring its working capabilities on par with those of human workers by the end of next year,” said Zhang Zhenlin, Dongfeng’s chief engineer of intelligent technology.
Xiaodong made its public debut at the World Robot Conference in August. It’s aimed squarely at material sorting in automotive manufacturing for a start, with Dongfeng saying development is moving from single repetitive actions towards fully autonomous execution of flexible operations – in plain terms, from doing one rehearsed task on repeat to figuring out varied jobs on its own.
There’s a second machine in the programme, too – a quadruped robot dog called Yuanzai, with autonomous navigation, multimodal perception and intelligent interaction, pitched at campus patrol and smart services. Dongfeng says it will reach commercial use sooner than the humanoid, with its first deployment being customer guidance at dealerships – so a Dongfeng showroom visit in China may soon begin with a robot dog showing you to the car.
The logic behind carmakers building robots is consistent across the industry: the supply chains, manufacturing discipline and AI stacks developed for cars – particularly for autonomous driving – transfer readily to embodied robotics, and Dongfeng says it intends to commercialise such products across multiple sectors.
It has plenty of company. Xpeng’s Iron humanoid already has a production line running, with mass production targeted by the end of this year; Chery-backed Aimoga Robotics has delivered over 3,000 robots globally and is preparing for an IPO; and Li Auto, Seres and Leapmotor have all announced embodied-intelligence plans of their own. Tesla has long promised its Optimus, and BMW put Figure’s humanoid to work at its Spartanburg plant back in 2024.
For Dongfeng, the robots are the latest expression of a wider push to be taken seriously as a technology player – the state-owned giant is also chasing solid-state batteries for its EVs.
Malaysians, meanwhile, know the brand through the 007 EV sedan and Vigo EV SUV sold through Dongfeng by Carro in PJ Midtown – no robot dogs in the showroom here just yet.
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Very soon autobots decepticons will be manufacturer cum factory operator. Meanwhile human species chill at cafe plays roblox or lay flat at home since retired from labourer portfolios.
Please produce cute robots and not those that can kill.
cute robots can also kill
Why make it with only 2 hands? Make it with 4 hands lah..
where do human being sit in this new food chain? all poor and jobless.
finally can start replace a species who are very lazy and incompetent.
Hint: they like to rempit and vape
Here is the easiest way to to tell if someone is a boomer with zero tech knowledge in 2026: they get excited over humanoid robots.
these things are so early in concept with a million bugs and problems whether it is China hosting “robot olympics” PR stunt, or whether it is US startups asking for preorder without any working product. in fact the US one literally is a human controlling the ‘robot’ remotely.
Maybe in 10 years possible, but this is just investor-baiting slop.
Amusement comments from strobeli gen. Glad your mindset underestimated humanoid technology advancement 555
“”bak kut teh tarik”” still in 100 yeras mindset.
Figure & Tesla Optimus already start mass production for autonomous humanoid Robot.
compared to robotics only two years ago, their tech has already advanced so far so fast. so try to keep up .
Sorting and inspection…hmmm its really2 misleading. There are already machine which is capable doing that sort of jobs and its about customisation to meet specific needs. AVI machines has been around for a very long time, so does sorting machine. They are never callled robots at any point, not even today.
Changing such machines appearance to resemble a living being will make them eligible to be call robots?