BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by Lio » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:36 AM UTC

torginus wrote: post #35

dmix wrote: post #24

Seems to be this European robotics company https://robotics.hexagon.com/product/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/hexagon-robotics-ai-software-a...

My prediction is that by the time humanoid robots actually make it to the factory floor, they'll be pretty un-humanoid. 90% of car manufacturing is done by oldschool industrial robots, and I've had people point out that heavy use of industrial robots are basically unique to the car industry. You might see a robot arm here and there in other industries, but it's somewhat rare, usually its all purpose-built machines or…

I remember back in the 90s hearing about a manufacturing paradox. Robots can reduce costs but for them to work you have to carry out extra design for manufacturing that simplifies the required tasks.

The paradox is that now you've simplified the process humans can also do it more efficiently and cheaply. The capital expense of robots doesn't really cost in compared to human production line.

There are exceptions. In the car industry you're moving heavy things with a high requirement for precision. I've also seen robots used for cleaning mouse cages in bioinformatics laboratories. There it's because handling large amounts of hazardous waste safely is inefficient for humans.

I wonder, how long will cheap human labour stay competitive for small consumer products compared to AI driven systems?

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

#122

Post by jonasdegendt » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:43 AM UTC

telescopeh wrote: post #77

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You reminded me of the hilarious SV pizza making robot startup which has its own robot arm. In this video you see the unnecessary robot arm move the pizza to the oven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN45bTsBUW8 For contrast a How it is Made video of frozen pizzas being created at dozens (hundreds?) per minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UrSIOtv8a0

The difference is they can be put into environments that do not allow for purpose robots. I don't think it is a bad idea that spaces are still made for humans for when something goes wrong. A frozen pizza factory is trying to solve and sell something different.

It’s a fun Vegas vending machine gimmick, but if I go to nice pizzeria I'd prefer my pizza be made by a human. Am I missing other use cases?

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

#123

Post by attheicearcade » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

hybridtupel wrote: post #119

The first question I had when watching this was how this robot doesn’t fall over with just these two tiny wheels. The center of mass is much higher than on a Segway, for example, isn’t it?

It’s dynamically balancing so wheel size doesn’t really matter as long as the wheels are responsive enough. Segways have big wheels to deal with bumps, this has smooth concrete floors to roll around on.

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

#124

Post by shellfishgene » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

hybridtupel wrote: post #119

The first question I had when watching this was how this robot doesn’t fall over with just these two tiny wheels. The center of mass is much higher than on a Segway, for example, isn’t it?

Balancing gets easier when the center of mass is high. Compare balancing a pencil on your hand vs a broomstick.

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

#125

Post by bob1029 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

Geof25 wrote: post #116

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…

> 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.

I've learned my lesson about German engineering after buying one of their vacuum cleaners. The ergonomics of the machine seem bad on purpose.

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

#126

Post by yen223 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:04 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #96

throwaway2037 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume that later models of the 747 were managed in Excel. No trolling: What is wrong with that? You can write insanely powerful software using (1) formulas on the sheet (which are essentially functional programming) and (2) imperative logic in VBA (HTTP calls, database calls, file system, etc.). For years, I used this model and wrote pretty powerful software. Sometimes, I miss it for the encapsulated system. These d…

There's nothing particularly wrong with it, Excel works great. But almost any complex Excel file is riddled with obscure bugs and the nature of the tool makes it impractical to apply some of the most effective quality control techniques. Like you can't easily do code reviews or write an automated test suite.

I suspect the average excel spreadsheet has fewer bugs than the average custom in-house enterprise software

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

#127

Post by _glass » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

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 worked with several multinationals, and the Germans always had very complex processes, but cannot at all confirm that they were the least digitised. The Americans were always behind in integrations (lots of file-based stuff), using outdated software, etc. I think the US has this problem that in Germany working for a bigger company is attracting talent, vs. the US where the talent goes to tech, while the rest is really far behind, i.e., Fortune500.

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

#128

Post by _glass » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:19 AM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #104

KnuthIsGod wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAP is truly terrible.

Well.... Before you say SAP is terrible, have you tried the competition? It has some data entry screens that are super efficient, cursor always goes to the right place, tab moves you to the right place etc. 15 years and lots of ERPs later I have never seen better When you are viewing a purchase invoice on the ledger you can see the PO it is matched to, click on it and it goes to the PO. Click a line on the PO you can…

SAP is much better than the home-grown stuff Tesla, Space X, or Amazon are using. One needs to compare the "new" public cloud solution, rather than the outdated soon not supported ECC system.

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

#129

Post by nicbou » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

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…

Germany is desperately wishing for a wonder weapon that will help them catch up and overtake other nations technologically. They constantly talk about smart cities and AI pie-in-the-sky projects while their administration is paper-based, risk-averse and parsimonious. They would not recognise not use such a breakthrough solution if it was handed to them.

Berlin's Chief Digitalization Officer's Twitter account was pure black comedy, until he was replaced by someone who - to my knowledge - has been AWOL for years.

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

#130

Post by nicbou » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

Geof25 wrote: post #116

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…

> 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.

Not just tanks but the entire economy and railways in the same time period.