Abstract:
According to the Financial Times, Toyota is aiming to become a global giant in the robotics industry. The world's largest automaker is modernizing its production lines to compete with Chinese rivals and diversify beyond the auto industry.
Humanoid robot developed by Toyota
Toyota executives are actively promoting the company's robotics strategy to global investors. Among them, Toyota will deploy 400,000 robots to automate factories as part of an annual investment plan of US$6.4 billion. At the same time, Toyota will also establish a dedicated robotics team under the leadership of the chief production officer.
There are increasing signs that Toyota is using its research and development experience accumulated in the field of robotics over the past 20 years to commercialize intelligent robots and compete with Tesla, Xpeng Motors and Hyundai Motors. This trend is attracting increasing attention from investors.
“I think Toyota has the potential to become the largest humanoid robotics company in the world, but they just need to let it go,” said Carl Vine of M&G, a Toyota investor and investment management company. “Whoever controls the software layer controls global manufacturing. Toyota is developing its own large behavioral models... and because of the scale of the business, they have a lot of data internally. These are key elements.”
Goldman Sachs analysts agree. They estimate that with its technical strength and large-scale mass production experience, Toyota is expected to occupy 3% to 8% of the global humanoid robot market by 2035, equivalent to sales of 190,000 to 540,000 humanoid robots.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also boldly declared that the Tesla Optimus humanoid robot will become Tesla's "most important product in history" and has set a long-term goal to increase annual production to 1 million units. Currently, the robot has begun production, but has not yet entered the mass production stage.
Latercomers
In the first and second decades of this century, Honda launched the Asimo humanoid robot, and SoftBank released the Pepper humanoid robot, making Japan almost synonymous with robots. However, with the rise of AI and the popularity of videos of Chinese humanoid robots dancing and doing Kung Fu online, more and more people believe that Japan has fallen behind the United States and China.
Toyota CEO Kenta Chika promotes the development of robots
Toyota is a latecomer to outlining its vision for robots, as its rivals have also turned to robotics to reduce vehicle manufacturing costs and find new revenue streams.
People close to Toyota said that after new CEO Kenta Kon took office, the company suddenly increased its efforts to promote its robot business ambitions because Toyota realized that it must increase its efforts to compete with China on factory production lines and technology fields.
Toyota will have the opportunity to introduce robotics when it opens a new car assembly plant near Nagoya in the early 2030s, the company's first new assembly plant in Japan since 2012.
"People in charge of production almost no longer consider using new technologies to build cars," said a former Toyota executive. "The production system is now one of the keys to competing with China. Robots are an important means for Toyota to deal with competition in China's manufacturing industry."
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