For the first time, BMW will use humanoid robots to produce cars in Europe, with two Hexagon Robotics Aeon robots set to join the Leipzig factory workforce from this summer.

Michael Nikolaides, head of process management and digitalisation at BMW, believes these robots are the future. 'If you have a humanoid form, you can pretty much set it to any workplace where a human is working today because it has the same size and the same capabilities,' he explains.

The Aeon robot stands 1.65m tall and weighs 60kg. It's equipped with 21 sensors including cameras, radar, a microphone, and force and torque sensors for manipulation. Training involves teleoperation and reinforcement learning to mimic human tasks effectively.

BMW sees these robots as helping address the looming labour shortage in car manufacturing, with potential roles feeding parts to tools and carrying out pick-and-place tasks during battery assembly. Other major carmakers are also exploring humanoid robots, including Toyota and Hyundai.