As profit margins in China’s automotive industry decline, auto parts manufacturers are increasingly turning to robotics as a new avenue for growth. They are leveraging their manufacturing, supply chain, and component expertise to tap into what they believe could become a vast future market.
One company is heavily investing both capital and personnel to grow its intelligent robotics division into a “second company,” according to the chairman of a Nantong-based manufacturer of automotive interior and exterior molds. While molds accounted for about 60% of the company’s revenue last year, emerging areas such as battery enclosures for new energy vehicles and smart agricultural robots are now seen as key expansion opportunities.
Their agricultural robots are currently deployed in Xinjiang’s cotton fields. Equipped with AI-powered visual recognition, centimeter-level navigation precision, and variable-rate spraying technology, these machines can cover between 53.3 and 66.6 hectares daily—five to eight times more than traditional manual labor.
Other auto parts companies are also planning to develop robotic solutions to serve as new engines of growth. Industry leaders see the transformation of the automotive sector unfolding in two stages: initial electrification, followed by a focus on intelligence and robotics.
Auto parts suppliers have two notable advantages when branching into humanoid robotics, according to an industry analyst. First, they already manage highly complex supply chains, as vehicles contain significantly more components than robots do. Second, many of the core technologies related to autonomous driving—such as sensing, control systems, and hardware-software integration—overlap with those needed in humanoid robots.
The scale of potential opportunities is considerable. A recent forecast suggests global robot hardware sales could grow from about USD 100 billion in 2025 to USD 500 billion by 2030, reaching USD 9 trillion by 2040, and USD 25 trillion by 2050.
In humanoid robotics, core components—areas where auto parts suppliers possess substantial manufacturing expertise—constitute roughly 60% to 70% of the total industry costs, according to a research report from a Shanghai-based securities firm.