Chinese electric vehicle maker XPENG showed off its humanoid robot IRON at the IFA 2026 technology fair in Berlin, where the machine drew attention on the company's stand for its unusually realistic human body proportions, a mirrored head and freely moving arms, a LIGA.net correspondent reported from the exhibition floor.
XPENG said IRON is designed as a general-purpose robot able to work without being constantly operated by remote control. It relies on what the company calls Physical AI systems to perceive its surroundings, reason about them, plan a course of action and then carry out tasks. XPENG has also built its own hardware platform for the robot, including chips, controllers and actuators, rather than relying on outside suppliers.
A crowded race in humanoid robotics
Humanoid robots, machines built with human-like limbs and proportions so they can work in spaces designed for people, have become one of the most closely watched fields in robotics and artificial intelligence in recent years. Automakers, technology firms and specialised startups around the world are racing to move such machines out of research labs and into factories, shops and, eventually, homes.
Robot's specifications
The current version of IRON has 76 degrees of freedom, a measure of how many independent ways a joint or a whole machine can move, including 21 in each hand alone. Its onboard computing is handled by three of the company's own Turing artificial intelligence chips, which together reach an effective performance of up to 2,250 TOPS, or trillion operations per second, a common benchmark for how much data an AI processor can handle.
From prototype to production line
XPENG has already moved beyond prototypes and into manufacturing. On September 8, 2026, the first IRON unit rolled off the assembly line by itself at a new XPENG plant, the company said. More than 80% of the key production processes on that line are automated, according to XPENG. Highly automated assembly lines, where robots and software carry out most of the work with limited human input, are widely used across the car and electronics industries to cut costs and scale up production quickly.
The company plans to begin mass production of IRON by the end of 2026. The first robots to come off the line will initially be used inside XPENG's own stores and facilities, with the first commercial deliveries to customers in China and international markets expected to follow in 2027.
XPENG's wider ambitions
IFA is one of the world's largest trade fairs for consumer electronics and home appliances and is held every year in Berlin. XPENG is a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer often described as a rival to Tesla, whose founder Elon Musk is also developing a humanoid robot of his own, called Optimus. The IRON robot is part of a broader push by XPENG beyond cars into robotics and artificial intelligence, and the company has also recently tested its own autonomous driving AI system on the roads in Germany.
Chinese exports and the European market
XPENG's expansion into Europe comes as the European Union considers tighter controls on Chinese imports. In late May 2026, EU Commissioner for Industry Stéphane Séjourné said the bloc would begin applying stricter quotas on goods imported from China. The EU has grown increasingly concerned in recent years about a wave of low-cost Chinese electric vehicles and other goods entering the bloc, prompting debate over tariffs and quotas to protect European manufacturers. In late June 2026, Bloomberg reported that Chinese-made cars accounted for more than a tenth of the European market for new vehicles in May, the first time they had crossed that threshold.
