Meet XPENG IRON: Humanoid Robot with Bionic Muscles and Solid-State Battery

Today XPENG took a bold step forward in robotics, unveiling the next generation of its IRON humanoid robot at the AI Day event in Guangzhou. The company is showing that it intends to expand far beyond electric vehicles and into a future where intelligent machines serve in commercial and social settings.

The new IRON is built on a completely redesigned hardware platform. It features a spine, bionic muscles and full-body soft skin, giving it much more human-like proportions and movement than the previous model. The robot’s hands now feature 22 degrees of freedom, enabling far more dexterous tasks and interactions. At the heart of the robot’s cognition are XPENG’s three in-house “Turing” AI chips, delivering 2,250 TOPS of compute, which allow the robot to perceive, interpret and act in real time. The software stack is built around a new vision-language-action model that XPENG calls VLA 2.0, which the company says will power robots, autonomous vehicles, flying cars and more.

XPENG’s strategy is clear: IRON is not just a show-piece. The company is targeting commercial deployment first — in roles such as tour guide, receptionist and service assistant in retail or commercial environments. Mass production preparation is slated to begin in 2026 with full-scale volume production expected before the end of that year. XPENG also emphasised that the robot uses an all-solid-state battery, a technology the company says benefits from the safety and energy density demanded by robots operating around people and in dynamic environments.

Tech watchers will note that XPENG is positioning its robotics effort as part of a broader “embodied AI” ecosystem spanning vehicles, flying aircraft and humanoids. The IRON robot serves as a bridge between the company’s electric vehicle heritage and its ambitions for physical computing and AI in the everyday world. While other manufacturers talk about humanoids years down the road, XPENG is laying a foundation now, building hardware, software and application ecosystems simultaneously.

As fans of technology and vehicles we often focus on motors, horsepower and lines—but here we are watching the evolution of “robots among us”. The IRON robot is not just an extension of the car maker; it is a sign of how mobility companies are shifting toward intelligent machines. As the world watches the dance of AI, sensors and articulated limbs, one thing is clear: this event signals that the next frontier in mobility is not just wheels—it might also be arms and hands.