IRON

The XPeng IRON humanoid robot represents a significant advancement in embodied AI and robotics, developed by Chinese electric vehicle giant XPeng over five years through six generations. Unveiled in its next-generation form at XPeng's 2025 AI Day, IRON features a highly anthropomorphic design with a bionic spine, synthetic muscles, and full-body flexible soft skin, enabling fluid, human-like movements that prompted public skepticism, leading CEO He Xiaopeng to cut open the robot live on stage to reveal its internal mechanisms. Standing at 173-178 cm tall and weighing 70 kg, IRON boasts 60-82 degrees of freedom overall, including 22 DoF in each human-scale hand with 10 fingers, allowing dexterous manipulation for tasks like screwdriving, object handling, and assembly. Architecturally, IRON employs a 'bone-muscle-skin' bionic structure. The flexible spine mimics human lumbar flexibility for natural gait and posture, while high-torque electric servo-actuators (harmonic joint modules) drive precise motion. Powered by high-energy-density solid-state batteries, it offers extended runtime (up to 4 hours per charge) with improved safety, power density, and reduced weight compared to traditional lithium-ion packs. Vision is provided by a 720° 'Eagle-Eye' system for omnidirectional spatial awareness, integrated with cloud connectivity for remote updates. At its core is XPeng's in-house Turing AI platform, powered by three Turing AI chips delivering 2,250 TOPS of compute power, enabling multi-modal processing. The system runs on Tianji AIOS operating system, fusing Vision-Language-Task (VLT) models with XPeng's newly unveiled VLA 2.0 (Vision-Language-Action) for end-to-end physical AI emergence. This allows semi-autonomous task execution, natural continuous dialogue with active reasoning, and real-time adaptation in dynamic environments. Latency from perception to action is minimized for responsive interaction. Deployment history began with prototypes in 2024, progressing to factory training by late 2025, where IRON assists in XPeng's own P7+ EV assembly lines, performing logistics sorting, product assembly, and inspections. Demonstrations include catwalk struts, Kung Fu-style agility tests showcasing balance and coordination, and retail scenarios like guiding customers. XPeng plans mass production in 2026, targeting ¥100 billion investment for commercial rollout in factories, retail outlets, offices, and eventually homes. Priced around $150,000 estimated, it emphasizes safety for human co-existence via soft skin and compliant actuators. Performance metrics include 4 km/h walking speed (max 7 km/h), 20 kg payload, and H.G. skill score of 4-6/10 for navigation and manipulation. IRON's integration of automotive-derived tech like solid-state batteries and AI chips positions XPeng as a leader in cross-domain AI mobility, bridging cars, robots, and flying vehicles.