BYD's First Humanoid Robot Debuts This Month — With Two or Three Greeters Per Showroom

BYD confirmed its first humanoid robot will debut in early August at a Di Space showroom in Zhengzhou, Yahoo Finance reported, marking the automaker's most concrete step yet into embodied intelligence. The company's robotics team has existed since 2022, and executive vice president Stella Li outlined plans for two or three robots per showroom greeting customers, with a mass rollout targeted in one to two years.

Showroom Greeters, Then Mass Production

BYD's strategy pairs the robots with its vast dealer network: each showroom becomes a live test bed where machines handle repetitive customer-facing tasks while the company collects real-world data. BYD's Hong Kong-listed shares rose about 4.23% on the news. The company also said it is planning an open robotics platform, inviting developers to build on its hardware.

"Robots in showrooms are the starting point," Stella Li said, describing a rollout that would scale from demonstration units to fleet deployments across BYD's retail network within one to two years.

China's Robot Wave

BYD joins a flood of Chinese humanoid efforts — Unitree is preparing a Shanghai IPO, and Chinese makers shipped the vast majority of the roughly 15,000 humanoids sold worldwide in 2025, according to Omdia. Automakers see a natural fit: robotics shares manufacturing, supply chain, and battery expertise with vehicles, and China's domestic supply chains keep costs low.