Tesla's latest earnings report shows Q3 operating profit of $718 million, down 56% year over year, with operating margin falling to 2.6%; after-hours trading fell as much as 4.5%, wiping out over $68 billion in value. Over the same period, overall gross profit rose 9% year over year, and automotive gross margin recovered to 18.5%.
AgiBot and related companies signed agreements for three projects under Lujiazui Group — Qiantan Origin, Qiantan Shang, and Yuqiao Smart Valley — totaling more than 220,000 square meters, with annual rent of about 350 million yuan (excluding property fees), setting a record for a single office leasing transaction in Shanghai.
LG Innotek, part of LG Group, is partnering with Nvidia to jointly develop perception solutions for physical artificial intelligence and robotics. LG Innotek will provide camera modules, lidar, and radar fusion perception technology, while Nvidia will contribute its Holoscan Sensor Bridge platform to enable direct data connections between sensors and GPUs.
Schaeffler has reached a technology partnership with German robotics and Physical AI company Wandelbots to jointly advance the application of the open platform Wandelbots NOVA in industrial and humanoid robotics, with the goal of integrating Physical AI into Schaeffler's global production network.
Why it matters: The partnership clarifies a deployment path from platform standardization and virtual validation to rollout across global factories, and can serve as a reference path for Physical AI entering production networks.
Schaeffler and German robotics and Physical AI company Wandelbots have entered a technology partnership to jointly develop the Wandelbots NOVA open platform for AI applications in industrial and humanoid robots.
Why it matters: The original text explains the scope of the partnership, the simulation validation toolchain, and the skills store mechanism, which helps readers understand the path for embodied intelligence deployment across multinational manufacturing networks.
Over the past two months, ByteDance has made intensive moves in AI video tools, building a product matrix that includes Jimeng, Xiaoyunque, a comic-drama creation tool, Dramagic, and Jianying Hub, covering scenarios such as film-grade creation, short dramas, comic dramas, marketing, and UGC editing.
Schaeffler and Wandelbots have entered a technology partnership to jointly develop the open NOVA platform for industrial and humanoid robots, aiming to advance Physical AI in industrial production. The original post includes a link to Schaeffler's press release.
Tesla and Nvidia will invest 1.1 trillion won and 2.6 trillion won respectively to build an FC-BGA (flip-chip ball grid array substrate) line for AI semiconductors with Samsung Electro-Mechanics; these substrates have become a new bottleneck in the AI supply chain. According to industry sources on the 22nd, Samsung Electro-Mechanics has signed a long-term FC-BGA supply agreement with Tesla and is building a dedicated line at its Sejong plant; Tesla's investment funds line expansion and equipment, in exchange for medium- to long-term stable supply guarantees, and these substrates will supply the AI chips used in Tesla's self-driving electric vehicles and its Optimus humanoid robot.
QuantumBit reports that embodied data company Maxinsights has delivered over 2 million hours of egocentric data to clients including Google DeepMind, Figure AI, Dyna Robotics, and Genesis AI, with ARR near $100 million for several consecutive months.
Tesla confirmed on its Q3 2026 earnings call that Optimus has rolled off the mass-production line in Fremont; these are the first standard mass-production models, and production started one quarter earlier than planned at the beginning of the year. Musk said the capacity ramp-up will take at least a year, with a final target of 20,000 units per week, corresponding to a production-line hardware design ceiling of one million units per year. The AI capabilities needed for autonomous operation are expected to mature by the end of next year; robots rolling off the line before then will be used internally at Tesla first, with external supply coming later.
Why it matters: The original ties production start, ramp-up period, and external delivery conditions into a single timeline, helping readers understand the gap between prototypes and stable deliveries.
The European Robotics Forum (ERF) 2027 will be held in March 2027 at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham, and registration is now open. The event plans more than 3,000 square meters of exhibition space, alongside multiple workshops, and is calling for peer-reviewed original research submissions in robotics and AI for its Scientific Track.
Tesla released its Q3 2026 financial report: 486,500 vehicles delivered, total revenue of $28.05 billion, and operating profit halved year-over-year to $720 million; in the same period, SpaceX revenue grew 161% with net profit of $4.4 billion.
SpaceX and Tesla have each formed special committees to discuss a merger. Musk confirmed it is a good idea but the terms are undecided, and the merger is not yet a done deal. Based on the October 20 closing prices, the two companies have a combined market value of about $3.5 trillion. If merged through a stock swap, Musk would hold about 37% of the equity and about 56% of the voting power in the combined company. The biggest obstacle is the Tesla shareholder vote: support from more than half of all issued shares is required, while Musk holds only about 20%, and as a conflicted party he must recuse himself from negotiations.
NVIDIA announced several implementations of open models and physical intelligence in European retail: Shopify used NVIDIA Megatron Bridge and NeMo RL to post-train Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, cutting serving costs by 90% and delivering 7x faster responses on internal benchmarks.
The article contrasts two sides of the robotics industry: Unitree Technology's stock price rose nearly 30% over three trading days, with its market value returning above 200 billion yuan, while a group of star robotics companies such as Yinghe Robotics have successively entered bankruptcy liquidation. Yinghe had received investment from ByteDance, GSR Ventures, and others, with a peak valuation exceeding $500 million; Dataa, Shenlan, Zhicheng Dynamics, and others have also fallen into difficulty because orders could not be delivered and they could not sustain themselves financially.
Tesla Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said on the earnings call that capital expenditure will continue to expand in the coming years, covering scaling the Robotaxi fleet, Optimus production capacity, solar manufacturing capacity, procurement of AI compute infrastructure, and construction of a chip factory. He said this strategy will support the company in entering a new growth cycle, and also said the foundation laid by autonomous driving, humanoid robots, and energy storage will bring promising prospects.
Fulin Precision announced that it signed an investment agreement with the Fucheng District government of Mianyang City, together with its subsidiary Banqiao Intelligence, to build a robot intelligent electric joint project. The total investment is 500 million yuan, implemented in two phases, with phase-one capacity expected at 2 million units per year. The company's robot products have already been delivered in small batches; it previously partnered with AgiBot, and nearly 100 Expedition A2-W robots are deployed in operation at its factory.
The three major A-share indices closed the midday session lower, with the Shanghai Composite down 0.89%, the Shenzhen Component down 1.78%, and the ChiNext Index down 2.77%. Robotics concept stocks were active against the trend, with Moons' Electric and Zhaowei Machinery & Electronics hitting the limit up; telecom equipment, shipping, and electronic components sectors led the declines, with Tongwei shares hitting the limit down and Eoptolink falling over 10%.
At the 2026 World Physical AI Conference and Unitree Partner Ecosystem Conference, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said that with the release of GPT-6, physical AI is showing signs of breaking through and could achieve a breakthrough in the next 1-2 or 2-3 years. He believes the core challenge for embodied intelligence to pass the ChatGPT moment is aligning AI model inputs and outputs with real robots, and that deployment in commercial services will come faster than in home and industrial settings.
Suzhou Limiaoda Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. announced that its Series B1 and B2 rounds together raised nearly 500 million yuan, and that its Series B3 round of several hundred million yuan has been oversubscribed by multiple institutions. The funds will go toward a manufacturing base for semiconductor and optical module intelligent equipment, an AI4S laboratory, and an embodied intelligence algorithm team.
Fulin Precision, an automotive precision parts company, disclosed that it and its wholly owned subsidiary Banqiao Intelligent plan to build a robot intelligent electric joint project in Mianyang, Sichuan, with a total investment of 500 million yuan. Once the first phase is completed, it will form an annual production capacity of 2 million sets of electric joints and core components.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the company's earnings call that the humanoid robot sector will become the world's largest industry, and that the number of humanoid robots on Earth may eventually exceed the human population. He expects that by late next year, issues such as robot AI, electromechanical design, reliability, and service life will hopefully be resolved, and only then can Optimus be delivered to companies other than Tesla.
HuiXi Intelligent, an embodied intelligence high-compute chip company, announced that with the successive completion of its Pre-B+ and B rounds, its cumulative equity financing in 2026 has exceeded 2.5 billion yuan. This round was led by the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, with participation from several government funds and market-oriented institutions including the Beijing Robotics Industry Development Investment Fund, Hidden Hill Capital, and Loyal Valley Capital, while existing shareholders such as Shunwei Capital, Source Code Capital, and SenseTime Guoxiang Capital continued to increase their investment. The funds will be focused on R&D of next-generation embodied intelligence high-compute chips, and on accelerating large-scale delivery and industrial ecosystem development.
At the 2026 World Physical AI Conference and Unitree Partner Ecosystem Conference, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said that since its release in May 2024, the Unitree G1 robot has reached cumulative production of about 10,000–20,000 units.
On October 20, the Equipment Industry Division I of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology sought public comments on five mandatory national standards, including Automotive Data Security Requirements. The standards specify that the ADS autonomous driving marker light (the blue light) uses a blue-green color, may be optionally installed only on L3 and above vehicles, is prohibited from being installed or illuminated on L2 and below vehicles, and its switch must be controlled by the automated driving system.
Unitree Technology issued an announcement on abnormal stock trading fluctuations after its closing price deviation accumulated to over 30% across three consecutive trading days on October 16, 19, and 20. It closed at 526.03 yuan per share on October 20, with a market value of 212.8 billion yuan.
The article notes that all-inclusive daily rental for humanoid robots fell from 10,000 yuan in early 2025 to under 3,000 yuan for a Unitree U2 including technical staff in October this year, while UBTech signed a strategic cooperation agreement with C&D Inc. on October 9 covering channels, supply chain, financing leases, and overseas markets.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced in Paris a new round of strategic investments in four French startups, covering health tech, chemical materials, business planning, and robotics. Genesis AI is the only robotics target, and it is negotiating a new funding round at a valuation of about $3 billion, roughly 20 billion yuan.
Tianyancha App shows that the Zhuhai Hengqin Jingshuo Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) was recently established, with Taizhou WeRide Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. as the executive partner and capital contribution of 16 million yuan. Its business scope covers investment activities using its own funds, financing consulting services, and enterprise management consulting. The partnership is jointly funded by Taizhou WeRide Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. and Huo Da, with contribution ratios of 99% and 1%, respectively.
Moya, a fully bionic robot developed by DroidUp, delivered the opening announcement at the finals of the Huaguoyuan Square Dance Competition in Nanming District, Guiyang, and then explained anti-fraud knowledge to community residents in the government publicity interaction area with real-time voice interaction. Moya weighs about 30 kilograms, uses tendon-rope-driven compliant motion, has a touch close to body temperature, and is equipped with the self-developed DroidSoul full-body interactive agent, which can recognize expressions, tone, and posture and remember each interaction. DroidUp plans to bring Moya to near-human service scenarios such as high-end reception, health and elderly care companionship, educational growth, and entertainment IP.
An industrial automation products company in Hubei selected the Hefei Banyitong (MiMA) MC08 stand-on three-way stacker forklift for temporary transfer of automation components within its plant and for a high-density storage upgrade of mid- and low-level narrow aisles; after two sets of equipment were put into operation, the number of storage locations increased by about 80%.
Linde Automation delivered a keynote speech at the 25th China International Alcoholic Drinks Expo, presenting the E-MATIC counterbalance robot for use in beer, baijiu, huangjiu, and beverage production logistics scenarios. The E-MATIC has a turning radius of only 1800mm, a maximum load of 3.5 tons, and a maximum lift height of 6 meters; it supports dual-pallet handling and can cover stages including production line end-of-line, warehouse stacking, and transfer outbound. Linde Automation can also integrate automated guided transport equipment, warehouse robots, intelligent scheduling, and fleet management systems to build a full-chain automated logistics system, and has already served multiple leading liquor companies.
Chengxi Technology's intelligent cleaning robot SE-R3 has won the Gold Award at the 2026 MUSE Design Awards. With a low center of gravity, continuous rounded surfaces, and a hidden retractable handle, the SE-R3 blends into public spaces such as hotels, shopping malls, and airports. It integrates four modes—floor scrubbing, sweeping, dust mopping, and carpet vacuuming—and combines 4D full-scenario perception, centimeter-level positioning, and dynamic path planning for operation, while a cloud platform supports both single-unit autonomous operation and multi-device collaborative management.
Hai Robotics has partnered with Mega to deploy FlashPick rack-climbing robots and 8-meter double-deep racks at its Los Angeles warehouse in the US, completing over a year of full-scenario commercial validation. Within a 600 sq m storage area, 11,016 bin locations are laid out, raising storage capacity by 400% compared with a traditional manual warehouse. The system includes 25 FlashPick robots, 4 inbound buffer rack workstations, and 5 outbound workstations, scheduled by the HaiQ WES and ESS systems.
Swisslog Logistics and KUKA Mobile Robotics will hold the "AI, Embodied" KUKA smart warehousing new product launch from November 3 to 6, 2026, at Booth W1-C2 of CeMAT ASIA at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, presenting a new smart warehousing solution and demonstrating the practical application of embodied intelligence in warehousing and logistics.
UBTECH recently signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with the International Relations Office of the Ras Al Khaimah government in the UAE to deploy humanoid robot products in Ras Al Khaimah and dispatch an engineering team for on-site demonstration projects. The first phase of cooperation focuses on validating the actual performance of humanoid robots in complex scenarios such as industrial automated assembly, intelligent public services, AI-powered elderly care, and cultural tourism services, and on conducting long-term durability testing in the local high-temperature, high-sunlight, and dusty environment. Ras Al Khaimah will provide a sandbox testing environment and a forward-looking regulatory framework, and the two sides will use the emirate as a regional platform to validate the systems' application performance in the UAE and the wider Gulf region.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other departments have issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for Upgrading Industrial Foundation Capabilities, which proposes that by 2030 the problem of weak industrial foundations will be markedly eased, with technological innovation capacity, self-reliance and controllability, and the supply of high-quality products all comprehensively improved. The plan calls for forming a batch of key foundational products that lead whole-machine innovation and several well-known brands with international influence, newly cultivating a batch of manufacturing single-champion enterprises and specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative "little giant" enterprises in the industrial foundation field, and bringing industrial foundation capabilities overall into the international advanced ranks.
AgiBot announced that starting October 22, it will release seven full-stack technology achievements over seven consecutive working days, covering datasets, an operation platform, the heavy-duty robot G2 Max, the embodied Agent framework GenieMaster, a simulation platform, a foundation model, and a collective experience learning paradigm.
Unitree Technology issued an abnormal trading fluctuation notice after its share price rose for three consecutive days and its market value returned to 210 billion, disclosing a PE as high as 388x (industry average 39.5x) and stating that the industry is still in an early commercialization stage. Unitree's first-half revenue was 1.152 billion, turning a profit, but non-recurring net profit fell 19.34% year on year; it will release its first third-quarter report on October 29. Meanwhile, AgiBot was reported to have a 50 billion valuation lock-up, as pricing power in embodied intelligence shifts from private-market stories to public-market financial reports.
Hyundai Motor Group and the Rhode Island School of Design enter the seventh year of their collaborative research, launching the "Motion Rewild" project to explore nature-inspired motion.