The price of humanoid robots remains the main obstacle to their democratization. They are still expensive to manufacture, with some of the thousands of parts that make them up increasing the cost.
Although some Chinese manufacturers now offer humanoid robots for less than 3,000 euros, their capabilities remain very limited. Currently, the models that are starting to be deployed in factories, on assembly lines, or in logistics are announced in a low range of between 30,000 and 50,000 euros, such as Apptronik’s Apollo or the Figure 02 robot. And for good reason: making a humanoid robot is expensive. The main reason is the price of the many parts that make them up. Among these, one represents almost half of the total cost: the actuators, these small motors which allow the robot to move. However, the trend is downward, and scaling up production could help to quickly reduce the overall bill.
Up to 15,000 different parts per humanoid robot
A humanoid robot is made up of at least 1,000 parts for an entry-level model like Unitree’s G1 and up to 15,000 parts for the most advanced models, like Tesla Optimus or Agility’s Digit robot. These thousands of parts also require an ultra-fragmented supply chain, which increases the risk of shortages and logistics costs.
There are actually eight main families of components. First of all we find the structure, which corresponds to the “skeleton” of the robot, i.e. the arms, legs and torso, which represent between 5 and 10% of the total cost of a robot. There remains a separate case: the hands. Due to their complexity, the latter represent the most expensive part of the structure: their price can vary from 15,000 to more than 50,000 euros for the most advanced models. They are in fact central, since they allow the robot to grasp objects, which requires a high level of precision, especially if they are fragile objects. Several start-ups focus primarily on the hands, such as the French Genesis AI, focused on the software aspect, and the Chinese Linkerbot, which represents nearly 80% of the hardware market.
Sensors are another essential element. Representing between 10 and 15% of the production cost of robots, they allow them to perceive the outside world, giving them a sort of “sense”. A 3D LiDAR, which allows them to navigate, costs, for example, between 600 euros for an entry-level model and more than 6,000 euros for the most efficient versions.
Another particularly strategic element: the GPU cards and processors, which constitute the real “brain” of the robot, responsible for processing sensor data in real time and executing the AI models. NVIDIA dominates this segment with its Jetson range, the latest Thor model of which is priced at nearly 4,000 euros per unit.
Then come the batteries, which cost around 1,000 euros, and the wiring, the robot’s “nervous system”, which allows electricity and data to pass through its body.
Actuators, key and expensive elements
Once all these elements are in place, they still need to be articulated. This is where actuators come in, accounting for almost half of the total cost of producing a humanoid robot. A single actuator costs on average nearly 1,000 euros, while a standard humanoid model includes 25 to 45.
Located at the elbows, knees or even hips, these parts equipped with small motors imitate the joints of the human body. The more agile the robot must be, the more actuators it integrates, mechanically increasing the number of degrees of freedom. “The actuator is quite simply what creates the movement,” explains Cédric Loubiat, CEO of General Robotics, a French start-up specializing in the manufacturing of these parts. “It’s the equivalent of a motor in a car. The difference is that a car generally only has one motor.”
The high cost of actuators is explained in particular by their complexity. They include an electric motor, control electronics, sensors, a mechanical structure and a mechanical gearbox, the latter being the most expensive component: several hundred euros per unit. “An electric motor alone does not have enough torque to directly move an arm or a leg,” explains Cédric Loubiat. “We must therefore add a mechanical reduction system, comparable to a gearbox. “In other words, a reduction gear is a mechanism that lowers the rotational speed of a motor while increasing its force, in order to allow it to efficiently move a robot arm or leg.
More than movement, the main challenge currently for actuator manufacturers concerns their ability to enable the transport of heavy loads. “If your actuators are too heavy, the robot spends its energy moving its own mass rather than moving a payload,” explains Cédric Loubiat. “And since humanoid robots run on batteries, autonomy becomes catastrophic. Today, we see very few demonstrations of robots capable of actually lifting significant loads.”
If the actuator market is dominated by China, which has built an integrated industrial ecosystem around ready-to-use actuators and has a world leader, CubeMars, Europe has important players such as the Germans Schaeffler and Wittenstein, or the Swiss Maxon. Japan, for its part, dominates the gearbox niche with Harmonic Drive Systems.
Industrialization of production, key to democratization?
Producing a robot is therefore still very expensive, but the trend has been downward for years. In less than three years, we went from 150,000-500,000 euros to a range between 30,000 and 150,000 euros. And the movement should accelerate with the gradual transition of the sector to an industrial scale.
Chinese manufacturers like Unitree, AgiBot or UBTech already benefit from the local industrial fabric, while Westerners are developing strategies aimed at freeing themselves from dependence on Chinese parts, by developing massive production capacities. 1X recently inaugurated its own factory in the United States, with the ambition of ultimately manufacturing 100,000 NEO robots per year. Other manufacturers have taken the gamble of partnering with players capable of producing parts and assembling robots on a large scale, such as the French company Wandercraft, whose Calvin-40 model will be manufactured on the lines of the automobile manufacturer Renault. Tesla, for its part, is banking on total vertical integration and has converted part of its electric car factories to dedicate them to humanoids. And the British start-up Humanoid announced on May 13 a partnership with Schaeffler to deploy its robots in the manufacturer’s factories: they will therefore participate in the manufacturing of the actuators intended for them.
While the humanoid robot market is still embryonic, 2027 could mark its scale-up. We would then enter a virtuous circle, the drop in prices being likely to lead to increased demand and therefore greater production. A recent study predicted that the global population of humanoid robots will reach 3 billion units by 2060. This would represent twice as many robots as automobiles.
