XPeng‘s founder and CEO He Xiaopeng announced on Monday that the company has successfully rolled off the first unit of the ET1 robot.
“Today, the first unit of our ET1 robot, developed to automotive-grade standards, has successfully rolled off the production line,” Xiaopeng wrote on Weibo, adding that he’s spent the day “observing and discussing the details behind it” with the team.
“This marks a critical step toward the large-scale mass production of advanced humanoid robots this year,” the CEO stated.
XPeng aims to achieve mass-production of humanoid robots by year-end, as announced during its ‘AI Day’ event last November.
Humanoid Unveil in 2024
The company unveiled its first-generation ‘IRON’ humanoid robot at the 2024 AI Day in November 2024.
XPeng revealed that it had been working on the humanoid robot over the last five years, with the model featuring “more than 60 joints and 200 degrees of freedom.”
Additionally, they share technology with the company’s vehicle models.
“The robots have already been integrated into XPeng’s daily operations and focus on internal applications, such as factories and stores,” the company said then.
New ‘IRON’ Humanoid
A year later, the company unveiled the second generation of its humanoid robot, which is powered by XPeng‘s VLA (Visual-Language-Action) 2.0 model.
It incorporates three in-house developed Turing AI chips, delivering 2250 TOPS of computing power. The chip was first introduced with new vehicle launches this summer.
The robot features a humanoid spine, bionic muscles, flexible skin, and a 3D curved display on its head.
During its live demo, the robot walked with such smooth, human‑like movement that many in the audience and on social media mistakenly believed it was a person inside a suit rather than a real robot.
To prove it was a real robot, XPeng’s CEO had part of its outer covering opened on camera, revealing the mechanical components inside.
According to him, the IRON humanoid will initially focus on commercial service applications, aiming to integrate seamlessly into various industries like a human.
Questioned about the similarities with Tesla‘s Optimus, besides CEO Elon Musk’s suggestion that the new Roadster might have flying capabilities — which XPeng is already exploring through its Aridge subsidiary — Xiaopeng praised the US company.
“Tesla is a very respectable company,” he stated. “I hope the world can have more companies like this.”
VLA 2.0
Earlier this month, XPeng revealed that its second-generation VLA will be deployed in the coming months.
Besides powering the IRON humanoid, the language model will be used to power autonomous driving on the company’s upcoming Robotaxi — which, as of then, was about to begin public road testing.
According to the company, the VLA 2.0 will start being integrated into XPeng vehicles from March onward.
The first batch of models to receive the technology will be the Ultra versions of the new P7, the fully electric G7, and the X9 EREV — all of which launched from mid-to-late 2025.
