Hyundai orders 30,000 Atlas humanoid robots with self-swappable battery for US car factories

Hyundai's robotics subsidiary, Boston Dynamics, unveiled the next generation of its Atlas humanoid robot that existed long before Tesla's pushy Optimus marketing started all the humanoid robot craze.

The latest Atlas edition is built from the ground up with mass production in mind, and Boston Dynamics starts production immediately, ramping up to 30,000 humanoid robots a year that Hyundai intends to deploy across its car factory floor in the US.

The new Atlas units made for factory work remove as many custom parts as possible and replace them with components that are readily available in the automaker's supply chain so that the robots can be produced at scale quickly and on the cheap.

2026 Atlas humanoid robot specs

• 56 degrees of freedom with no hydraulic systems left
• Built of aluminum and titanium
• 6 feet 2 inches tall with 198 lbs of own weight
• Capable of lifting 110 lbs or carrying 66 lbs of cargo
• 7.5 feet of reach
• 4-hour autonomy, able to swap its own battery for continuous operation

The Atlas robot is capable of evaluating its surroundings in real time, while Hyundai Mobis actuators adjust its pose and balance, and tactile sensors adjust the grip force of its hands, can be reconfigured according to the tasks. The AI processing of its surroundings is executed by Nvidia chips, and Boston Dynamics has entered a partnership with Google's DeepMind for developing foundation models that would further advance its cognition.

The first Atlas humanoid robot production units are hence heading to the main partners, Hyundai and Google, for workflow evaluation. Between Atlas and the incessant rise of humanoid robot production in China, Tesla's Optimus will be facing an abundance of competition when it lands on factory floors, it seems.