Musk praises Xiaopeng robot for ‘good figure’, both sides compete from electric cars to embodied intelligence

According to media reports, Musk commented on the Xiaopeng robot IRON in a chat on November 7th. Musk referred to Aaron as having a “good figure” in a chat message and gave him a like from afar. Not bad. The entire robotics market will be dominated by Tesla and China, “Musk said. At the same time, Musk also expressed appreciation for the feminine qualities of the robot. He said, “Other robot companies in the West are still weak, but I respect my competitors in China because there are too many smart and hardworking people in China.

Regarding Musk’s evaluation, Xiaopeng Chairman He Xiaopeng responded, “I am very happy about Elon’s victory in this shareholder meeting, and I also voted for it. In addition, I believe Tesla’s robots and Robotaxi are both doing great, and I look forward to even greater success. ”At the “2025 Xiaopeng Technology Day”, Xiaopeng’s new generation of IRON made its debut and showcased a cat like lightweight gait. Subsequently, many netizens questioned, saying that ‘it feels like a real person is trying to play the role of a robot’.

On the morning of November 6th, He Xiaopeng responded on Weibo: “Yesterday on Science and Technology Day, Xiaopeng’s female robot Iron appeared with a catwalk, stunning the friends on site. However, more than half of the online comments were actually asking: Is there a real person hidden inside the female robot. This really makes our robot team both happy and amused. There are always people who don’t believe that the world is changing so quickly. This morning, they forced me to shoot a video without any editing to respond to this question. They hope everyone can distinguish between truth and falsehood and help us clarify. ”

In the above video, He Xiaopeng recreated the entire process of the robot walking cat steps and asked the robot team to unzip the back to fully display the internal structure, including the lattice muscles and controller on the back, the transport fixator on the shoulder, the microphone array at the ear position, and the harmonic joints on the hand. According to He Xiaopeng, the new generation of IRON has a humanoid robot with a humanoid spine, biomimetic muscles, and fully covered flexible skin, supporting customization for different body types; At the same time, the application of all solid state battery technology achieves lightweight, ultra-high energy density, and safety, providing guarantees for the safe operation of humanoid robots in long endurance and complex environments.

According to He Xiaopeng, the new product is equipped with the second-generation VLA, which has three Turing AI chips and constructs a combination of VLT+VLA+VLM high-order big and small brain abilities, enabling high-level intelligence such as dialogue, walking, and interaction. At the same time, it is equipped with the industry’s first application of all solid state batteries, striving to achieve ultimate lightweight, ultra-high energy density, and ultimate safety. Introduce robot active security protection to maximize the safety of participants in the physical AI world, and extend the fourth rule that private data cannot be released from the robot.

In He Xiaopeng’s view, unlike the core of “integration+innovation” in automobiles, the key to robots lies in “fusion+innovation”, and full stack self-developed technology is the foundation of “fusion+innovation”. Because robots are software driven hardware designs, only self-developed hardware can perfectly match the trained model, and the model training needs to be specially adjusted according to one’s own needs. Therefore, only full stack self-developed robots can be created that are sufficiently advanced and can achieve large-scale production.

He Xiaopeng revealed that by the end of 2026, Xiaopeng aims to achieve mass production of advanced humanoid robots. It is reported that Xiaopeng Motors has established its first embodied intelligent data factory in Guangzhou. At the level of commercialization plan, Xiaopeng’s new generation of IRON will prioritize entering commercial scenarios to provide services such as tour guide, shopping guide, and traffic guidance. Baosteel will become the ecological partner of the Xiaopeng Robot IRON project. In the near future, Xiaopeng IRON will settle in Baosteel to explore application scenarios and iterate evolution in complex industrial fields such as inspection.

Tesla will also begin mass producing robots in 2026. At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting on November 7th, Musk shared insights on humanoid robots, autonomous driving, production expansion, chip innovation, and updated company mission. Regarding robots, he emphasized that Tesla’s humanoid robots will be the largest product in history, with an expected market size of billions of units. The ratio of personal robots to industrial robots is approximately 1:3 to 1:5. The robot production line will initiate the fastest capacity ramp up among all large and complex manufacturing products in history. Start a production line with an annual capacity of 1 million units from the Fremont factory, and then build a production line with an annual capacity of 10 million units in Texas. Humanoid robots will start mass production next year, prioritizing human safety. Once a sustained production of 1 million units per year is achieved, the production cost will be around $20000.

Next year, the production of the third generation Tesla humanoid robot will be launched; The humanoid robot adopts an annual release cycle, with significant improvements every time. The fourth generation is expected to be launched in 2027, and the fifth generation is expected to be launched in 2028. In Musk’s vision, electric vehicles and robots are homologous products that will complement each other. He believes that Tesla humanoid robots are essentially “smart cars with arms and legs,” and share the same technology as Tesla vehicles, such as batteries, motors, and artificial intelligence.

Musk has stated that humanoid robots will be used for the construction of lunar and Mars bases, and Tesla vehicles such as the Cyber Land Cruiser will be able to be converted into lunar/Mars exploration vehicles. Musk estimates that in order for the artificial intelligence system of humanoid robots to operate efficiently on low-power chips, “billions of dollars” will need to be invested in training calculations. However, if Xiaopeng’s robots are also mass-produced in 2026, it means that Xiaopeng and Tesla’s robots will compete in the market in 2026, which will be an interesting phenomenon.