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

press.bmwgroup.com

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

#241

Post by loic-joachim »

any1 wrote: post #208
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…

That reminds me. I worked for a company where we punched in using an iButton (it's a pretty neat 1-wire thing that fits on a key chain). The punch clock system was logged and then at the end of the month, they printed out a single A4 sheet for every employee for us to make corrections and sign. Of course, someone had the unenviable job of going over all those and applying the corrections. We also had to write down ho…

Wow, how is that an improvement over something like timeclock.kiwi?

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

#242

Post by amai »

oblio wrote: post #160
amai wrote: post #154

Now they can produce even more cars nobody wants. BMW really needs to change its strategy to build cars for the future ( battery electric vehicles ) and stop churning out all those heavy diesel SUVs. Because it doesn't matter how efficient you produce something, if it is the wrong thing you produce. Actually producing the wrong product highly efficiently makes matters even worse. It's like running in the wrong direct…

BMW makes a lot of EVs: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T045485... Almost half a million sold in 2025 (out of 2.5 million).

So only 20% of the cars they produce are electric. That is not enough. In China 50% of all sold cars are electric nowadays. In Norway it is even 90%. BMW is way behind these numbers. They are not producing for the future, they are producing for the past.

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

#243

Post by Throaway1985123 »

dogemaster2025 wrote: post #204
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore However bad Germany is in this regard, I suspect the US is far worse. There is no cohort in the US who remembers living in "East US" to temper the exces…

Certain liberal cities are the “East US.”

True, Minneapolis had the USA Stasi deployed there!

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

#244

Post by specialist »

tooltalk wrote: post #239
specialist wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the tariffs madness, once Chinese cars meet our safety standards, they'll sale quite well here. I'd buy a Kia PV9 in a heartbeat.

Isn't Kia a Korean company? Is PV9 manufactured in China?

Yaya. Sorry. I didn't state my assumptions, am mixing issues.

To me, Kia/Hyundai is an example of a foreign manufacturer successively building EVs in North America for North America. Satisfying American standards, tastes, regulations, etc.

I expect the larger Chinese competitors to do the same.

Decades ago, European and then Japanese competitors did as well.

The sooner the better.

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

#245

Post by petre »

Gravityloss wrote: post #168
pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I have long experience of multiple German car brands. The interface spectrum goes like this: driving and seats etc are close to perfect for me. As long as it's about buttons, they are really good. But once it goes to screens, it starts getting worse. And then, with mobile app, it's basically barely functioning at all.

I like how the VW controls are laid out on older models but not the seats. They're too hard and not confortable. Even my Suzuki has better, more confy seats. The seats in the A1 I had were a diaster, especially the back seats, totally useless unless you put 10 year old kids in them.The fronts seats were hard, your butt would hurt after 3 hours. The engine was rattling new and the car is a pita to repair, something broke all the time. But it stuck to the road and was so much fun to drive that I skidded in a roundabout and nearly hit the lane separator. A Civic is probably better in every regard though. Newer Audi diesel models automotive eat up oil, adblue. You basically need to fill up at least 3 or 4 fluids all of the time, including screenwash. Just another extra reason to avoid diesels.

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

#246

Post by petre »

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #141
pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I don't know if it's sheer stubbornness or they're just wired differently. As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore. They just want to keep the system running until retirement. There is no long-…

> As a young person it infuriates me but there is nothing we can do.

Spend your money elsewhere, perhaps?

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

#247

Post by pino83 »

earthnail wrote: post #191
samiv wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non German but someone who has lived there for 10 years my take is that its cultural part of being Germans. They always seem to gravitate towards making things just a little bit more difficult. Sthe keyboards are not QWERTY. They're QWERTZ. Traffic lights are in excessive combinations of green/yellow/red. Sometimes you might have yellow/red light sometimes only red. Roads often have "end of speed limit" sign. Bu…

German here. Some of it I can agree with. The traffic light though is very simple. Yellow means “it was green and will turn red”. Red+yellow means “it was red and will turn green”. It’s this way in the entire country. There are many things I can get upset with in Germany (I moved abroad 10y ago and have an outsider’s perspective by now) but the traffic light example to me just indicates you didn’t ask why certain thi…

After reading some parts of this thread, all I can recommend is the following: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/539867-never-argue-with-an-...

(I'm sure there are various German things to criticize or to make fun of. Much of what I read here, however, says more about the (US?!) authors, though.)

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

#248

Post by petre »

joe_mamba wrote: post #118
pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 th…

If they're planning to reduce labour with this BMW robot, I have interesting news for them: the Chinese showcased kung fu dancing robots that runs circles around their lame German humanoid robot who can't even pour a beer, let alone assemble cars.

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

#249

Post by oblio »

amai wrote: post #242
oblio wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW makes a lot of EVs: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T045485... Almost half a million sold in 2025 (out of 2.5 million).

So only 20% of the cars they produce are electric. That is not enough. In China 50% of all sold cars are electric nowadays. In Norway it is even 90%. BMW is way behind these numbers. They are not producing for the future, they are producing for the past.

The EV market is stalling: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2025/11/china-elec...

The German car brands are better positioned than especially Americans are giving them credit for, especially people affected by Tesla's reality distortion field.

Heck, Toyota is better positioned than many believe.

They are just being cautious but they all have access to the relevant tech.

EVs will become the majority of cars sold in major markets in maybe 5 years, and BMW, VW, Mercedes, etc. all have relevant EVs and many types, and they will have even more by then.

They can't compete with subsidized Chinese EVs, but that will be solved soon as nobody wants to see a repeat of phone/smartphone industry destruction, but this time with cars. Yes, through tariffs and trade barriers.

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

#250

Post by ricardobeat »

specialist wrote: post #227
ricardobeat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apart from the tariffs madness, once Chinese cars meet our safety standards, they'll sale quite well here. I'd buy a Kia PV9 in a heartbeat.

Most EVs from china have a 5-star rating on european NCAP tests – which I believe are much stricter than US ones.
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