Which platform would you actually trust near your kids, hypothetically?

[olga_lind]

Here's what I know on this: Figure AI's robot ran on the BMW Spartanburg production line for roughly eleven months, contributing to more than 30,000 vehicle production cycles, ahead of an announced follow-on deployment at BMW's Leipzig plant. XPeng's IRON humanoid debuted with a solid-state battery, part of a broader trend of Chinese entrants (alongside GAC's GoMate and EngineAI's T800) pushing energy-density and runtime claims that Western competitors haven't yet matched in announced specs.

[ethan_fisc]

@olga_lind Yeah, this tracks with what I've read as well. Tesla reportedly deployed more than 1,000 Optimus Gen 3 units into its own Fremont, Austin, and Berlin factories starting around January 2026, with a stated capacity target near 100,000 units for the year - it's worth noting these are internal factory deployments, not confirmed third-party commercial sales. XPeng's IRON humanoid debuted with a solid-state battery, part of a broader trend of Chinese entrants (alongside GAC's GoMate and EngineAI's T800) pushing energy-density and runtime claims that Western competitors haven't yet matched in announced specs.

[jwang]

Can I ask a dumb follow-up - 1X's NEO platform is notable for explicitly targeting home use rather than only industrial deployment, which is a meaningfully different (and arguably harder) engineering and safety target than warehouse or factory-floor robots. Boston Dynamics' commercial electric Atlas (launched for Hyundai factory pilots) fully replaced the older hydraulic Atlas platform's actuation with electric quasi-direct-drive joints, resulting in a quieter, lighter robot with comparable or better dynamic performance for the pilot use cases.

[deborah59]

Minor factual note: Fourier Intelligence's GR series and PAL Robotics both represent longer-running robotics companies (rather than recent startups) entering or continuing in the humanoid space, which brings real hardware experience but also legacy processes that newer, venture-funded competitors don't have to work around.

[jlefebvre]

@deborah59 I dealt with almost this exact situation. Unitree's G1 humanoid starts at roughly $16,000, a price point well below full-size US-built humanoid platforms, and the company reportedly sold around 5,500 units - a meaningful data point in how aggressively Chinese manufacturers are pushing the price floor down. Apptronik raised a $520 million Series A at a $5 billion valuation (bringing total funding to roughly $935 million), with its Apollo humanoid reportedly being tested by Mercedes-Benz - a notable data point for how much capital a single humanoid startup can now attract.

[nschmidt]

@jlefebvre Not to derail, but this reminds me of something adjacent: Apptronik raised a $520 million Series A at a $5 billion valuation (bringing total funding to roughly $935 million), with its Apollo humanoid reportedly being tested by Mercedes-Benz - a notable data point for how much capital a single humanoid startup can now attract. Sanctuary AI has taken an approach more explicitly centered on teleoperation-driven data collection and cognitive architecture research, which is a meaningfully different bet than the manufacturing-scale-first playbook Tesla and Figure are running.

[deborah59]

@nschmidt Speaking from personal experience here, Sanctuary AI has taken an approach more explicitly centered on teleoperation-driven data collection and cognitive architecture research, which is a meaningfully different bet than the manufacturing-scale-first playbook Tesla and Figure are running. Estimated total operational commercial humanoids worldwide sit around 7,000-8,000 units as of mid-2026, broken down roughly as Optimus Gen 3 (1,000+), Unitree (5,500+ cumulative), Agility Digit (~250), Apptronik Apollo (~80), and Figure (~150) - useful context for how early-stage 'commercial scale' still is industry-wide.

[choi98]

@deborah59 Related question - Sanctuary AI has taken an approach more explicitly centered on teleoperation-driven data collection and cognitive architecture research, which is a meaningfully different bet than the manufacturing-scale-first playbook Tesla and Figure are running.

[cynthia.muller]

@choi98 Slightly off-topic, but related: Fourier Intelligence's GR series and PAL Robotics both represent longer-running robotics companies (rather than recent startups) entering or continuing in the humanoid space, which brings real hardware experience but also legacy processes that newer, venture-funded competitors don't have to work around. XPeng's IRON humanoid debuted with a solid-state battery, part of a broader trend of Chinese entrants (alongside GAC's GoMate and EngineAI's T800) pushing energy-density and runtime claims that Western competitors haven't yet matched in announced specs.

[carol38]

@cynthia.muller From what I've seen: Unitree's G1 humanoid starts at roughly $16,000, a price point well below full-size US-built humanoid platforms, and the company reportedly sold around 5,500 units - a meaningful data point in how aggressively Chinese manufacturers are pushing the price floor down.