BMW is putting humanoid robots on the manufacturing unit line at its Leipzig plant — the primary time the corporate has deployed them at a European facility — because the auto business turns to AI-powered robotics to scale back labor prices and sort out bodily demanding duties. A small variety of the machines, provided by Hexagon Robotics, will go to work on meeting traces and within the manufacturing of high-voltage batteries for electrical automobiles, an space the place staff at present should put on cumbersome protecting clothes.
What Is Bodily AI, and Why Does It Matter?
BMW calls this “Bodily AI” — clever techniques that may understand, motive, and act inside advanced, real-world manufacturing environments. It’s a big evolution past conventional automation, and it’s constructed on a basis the corporate has been quietly establishing for years: a unified knowledge infrastructure throughout its whole manufacturing community that lets AI brokers tackle more and more autonomous duties and continue learning over time.
“Digitalisation improves the competitiveness of our manufacturing — right here in Europe and worldwide,” mentioned Milan Nedeljković, BMW’s manufacturing chief, who is about to turn into the corporate’s CEO in Might. “The symbiosis of engineering experience and synthetic intelligence opens up totally new potentialities in manufacturing.”
Leipzig Will get Its First Humanoid Robotic
Hexagon’s humanoid, AEON — unveiled in June 2025 — incorporates a human-like physique that may accommodate a variety of hand, gripper, and scanning attachments, and strikes dynamically on wheels. The Leipzig pilot started in December 2025. A broader take a look at deployment is deliberate for April 2026, with a full-scale pilot launching in summer time 2026. The robotic’s focus shall be on high-voltage battery meeting and element manufacturing — two areas the place precision, security, and ergonomics are all essential.
Humanoid robotics is explicitly positioned as a complement to current automation, not a substitute for staff. BMW says the aim is to “relieve staff and additional enhance working situations” — notably in repetitive or bodily taxing roles. However there’s a enterprise case past labor situations, too. In response to Michael Ströbel, BMW’s head of course of administration, humanoids may ultimately permit BMW to convey work in-house that at present goes to suppliers. “This offers us alternative to do extra manufacturing in-house,” he mentioned.
Classes Realized from Spartanburg
BMW didn’t begin this experiment in Europe. The world’s first deployment of a humanoid robotic at a BMW plant happened in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 2025 — in partnership with California-based Determine AI. The outcomes had been putting.
Over ten months, Determine AI’s Determine 02 robotic labored day by day ten-hour shifts Monday by Friday, supporting the manufacturing of greater than 30,000 BMW X3s. The robotic dealt with the exact removing and positioning of sheet metallic components for welding — a repetitive, bodily demanding process that was, in BMW’s personal phrases, “notably demanding when it comes to pace and accuracy whereas additionally being bodily exhausting.” By the top of this system, it had moved over 90,000 elements, logged roughly 1,250 working hours, and coated roughly 1.2 million steps.
The Leipzig pilot is analogous in scale, and BMW is making use of the Spartanburg classes immediately. One of many key takeaways from the US trial: the transition from lab to manufacturing flooring occurred quicker than anticipated. Movement sequences educated in managed settings transferred easily into secure shift operation, and the robots had been built-in with BMW’s Sensible Robotics ecosystem by way of standardized interfaces.
A New Middle of Competence
To construction and scale this work, BMW has established a “Middle of Competence for Bodily AI in Manufacturing.” The middle consolidates experience from throughout the group and provides know-how companions an outlined analysis path — from lab testing utilizing actual BMW manufacturing use circumstances, to preliminary plant trials, to full pilot phases.
“Our goal is to be a know-how chief and to combine new applied sciences into manufacturing at an early stage,” mentioned Michael Nikolaides, Senior Vice President Manufacturing Community, Provide Chain Administration at BMW Group. “Pilot initiatives assist us take a look at and additional develop using Bodily AI — AI-enabled robots able to studying — beneath real-world industrial situations.”
BMW’s transfer displays a broader shift throughout the auto business, which has more and more seemed to humanoid robots each as a technique to improve factories and as a possible new product market.
BMWBLOG may have its personal on-site reporters and video protection from Plant Leipzig within the coming days. Keep tuned for an up-close have a look at AEON in motion and unique insights straight from the manufacturing flooring. Right here is an Instagram video to see it in motion:
