Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

press.bmwgroup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 275 posts

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#111

Post by jimnotgym »

Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

Or even more likely gets emailed around daily to a bunch of people, half of which don't work there anymore, most of which don't read it, and one that is looking to haul people over the coals over a KPI that is against the companies best interests, but is powerful enough to command this wasting of time

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#112

Post by kensai »

Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

They are improving, though, given the international pressures. I've seen it at least in the organisation I am working (a university hospital).

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#113

Post by gregorygoc »

Lio wrote: post #106
wenc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

> if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users -- weird little user-hostile features pop up everywhere I drive a German car, all be it one from 2015, I don’t recognise this statement at all. I find it quite well designed. This sounds more like over generalised FUD to me.

I agree. Parent comment is making extremely generalized statements, about German cars with overconfidence. There’s not a single “German” car, it’s a huge ecosystem of brands like VW (Audi, Porsche), BMW, Mercedes. I’m quite sure they don’t have the single “user-hostile” interface.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#114

Post by ItsYan »

s3p wrote: post #20
Zqwlpaj wrote: post #8

It is a pilot project. German pilot projects rarely go anywhere. If this succeeds against all odds, I hope for BMW that the robots are buying cars, too.

It'll be the first time a BMW ever used turn signals!

People like to hate on BMW drivers but a BMW driver was the only person in a hardware store parking lot to help me with jump-starting my car.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#115

Post by torginus »

ricardobeat wrote: post #58
torginus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a myth - Chinese factories don't seem to be automated to a higher degree than European ones, and in any case are still full of Kuka, Fanuc and ABB robots. I think there's a domestic brand or two that's gaining marketshare, but they're not there yet. There's a myth of Chinese high-tech (esp in cars), that is not to say their stuff isn't technologically advanced, but the characterization that Chinese te…

This take might have been true years ago, especially for cheaper makes, but modern EVs from china use high-quality components and designs that often surpass european automakers. The premium brands - Nio, Zeekr, Polestar, Lotus, etc - have design and R&D offices in Europe, and source parts from suppliers all over the world. Nio uses Nvidia Orin chips, Qualcomm SoCs, Brembo brakes, Bosch controllers, ZF suspension syst…

> have design and R&D offices in Europe, and source parts from suppliers all over the world. Nio uses Nvidia Orin chips, Qualcomm SoCs, Brembo brakes, Bosch controllers, ZF suspension systems, Continental/Pirelli tires, and ClearMotion (in their flagship model); can't get any better than that.

Exactly my point - if premium Chinese cars use Western components are built by Western robots, and designed in Western offices - that means the Chinese technological superiority does not exist.

As for their cars and roads being big - I don't see that as an upside, I have heard from many Chinese residents that the physical size of their cities means (most European cities are denser than Chinese ones) that navigating them becomes that much harder and painful.

Which lays to rest another myth about how China is light-years ahead of the West in urban planning , when in reality they have their own issues.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#116

Post by Geof25 »

wenc wrote: post #63
Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

> I wonder what has happened to the German builder/tinkerer culture that made German manufacturing great.

Over engineered stuff which hate the user is staple of German manufacturing. Look on tanks during WW2. Impressive on the surface but unreliable crap for everyone who used it.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#117

Post by umpalumpaaa »

hnburnsy wrote: post #88

A union in Germany is fighting Tesla over this same thing... >. In 2026, Giga Berlin is the pilot site for the "Optimus" Gen-3 integration—humanoid robots performing repetitive tasks in the battery pack assembly area. IG Metall views this not as progress, but as a threat to job security. https://www.teslaacessories.com/blogs/news/the-giga-berlin-s...

I always found German unions pretty good.

I mean the union is correct in this case. Robots will replace jobs. A union’s job is to make sure there are jobs for people in the company they are already in.

Usually unions would speak the truth (“robots = jobs go away”) but pair this with some suggestions: eg trying to upskill the affected worker so that they can be moved to a different department).

While I was working in Germany I always felt better at a company with a strong union.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#118

Post by joe_mamba »

pcurve wrote: post #100
wenc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

>how cheap / penny pinching his German companies and their employees were when doing deals

I think most people(Americans mostly) don't have the faintest idea how true that is right now. Here's a comment of mine from a few weeks ago giving such a present-day example that will blow your brains of how cheap german companies are. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018023

I feel like German companies know they lost the innovation race (I mean companies that aren't Zeiss), they lost the cheap manufacturing race "thanks" to Russian gas dependence and ideological denuclearisation before enough renewables were built, so all that's left for them now to stay afloat is reducing labor and operating costs by offshoring and pinching all the pennies they can find, but even that it not enough since from where I stand there's weekly corporate bankruptcies and layoffs and that's including the fact that the government has been speeding like crazy the last 3+ years to make sure the private sector industry doesn't completely collapse.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#120

Post by afewquarks »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #91
MBCook wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s generally what it seemed like to me too. Seemed to be human shaped so they could say it’s humanoid… and nothing else. Nothing in the video looked like it couldn’t be done by a more industrial robot shaped robot. And I bet that would be cheaper or easier to make. Then I started reading the text. When I got to the part very early on about deploying “Physical AI” that confirmed it to me. This all seems to be “hum…

I agree with your opening paragraph -- hot take! What would be more interesting, would be to see humanoid robots un/packing and moving boxes in their warehouses. That to me seems like one of the first logical places to deploy humanoid robots to replace (or assist) human workers.

[dead]
Post reply on HN