XPeng, a Chinese company recognized globally for its electric car projects and autonomous mobility technologies, expanded its presence in the robotics sector by releasing a new video of the humanoid Iron.
The model had already appeared in a public demonstration at the beginning of the month, but the realism of its gait led some of the public to doubt that the movements were completely mechanical. To clarify how the robot works, the company published images in which it removes parts of the housing and exposes the internal engineering responsible for the fluidity of gestures.
The video that reignites the debate
In the material released by the manufacturer, Iron appears performing a sequence of choreographed movements before being partially opened. The disassembly shows actuators, servos and cables organized in a system that seeks to reproduce the human body structure. The video is narrated by CEO He Xiaopeng, who details how the robot was trained to observe human dancers and learn the choreography in a few hours, a process that in previous stages required weeks of adjustments.
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XPeng explains that the naturalness of the movements is linked to an internal structure described by the company as an artificial column. The mechanism was designed to allow broad trunk flexion and balance control even when the robot operates without part of the outer casing. Iron has 82 degrees of freedom and hands with 22 joints, numbers that detail the level of precision sought in the project.
Iron as part of a new generation
The humanoid is part of the set of announcements presented during XPENG AI Day, the company’s annual event in Guangzhou. At the time, the company revealed a new version of Iron equipped with three Turing artificial intelligence chips, totaling 3000 TOPS of computing capacity. The model also debuts fully solid-state batteries, a solution cited by XPeng as safer and more efficient for long-term robots.
The design follows the concept described by the manufacturer as born from within, which reproduces body structures with artificial muscles, flexible skin and bionic systems. According to the company, this approach aims to allow the robot to perform tasks with more natural responses and precision in dynamic environments, especially in corporate use.
Part of XPeng’s physical AI strategy
Iron’s presentation takes place amid XPeng’s advancement in initiatives that combine robotics, autonomous vehicles and aerial mobility. During the event, the company presented its VLA 2.0 AI model, created to interpret physical scenarios and generate actions directly from visual signals. The company claims to have built a complete system that includes its own chips, advanced models and integrated hardware, the basis that supports both its autonomous cars and humanoid robots.
XPeng also maintains a factory dedicated to data processing and model training for robots, an infrastructure that is part of the strategy to accelerate production at scale. The company’s expectation is that humanoids will begin to appear in commercial environments in 2026.
Corporate use and first tests
The company stated that Iron will initially be placed in service and operational support roles. Baosteel was announced as one of the first partners to receive the robot, which will be tested in inspection and support activities in industrial environments.
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Disassembly as a response
The release of the video with the open robot acts as a direct response to the impact generated by Iron’s first presentation. By showing the internal components in operation, XPeng seeks to detail the construction of the humanoid and reinforce the advances of the new generation, which should evolve alongside the company’s plan to expand its presence in robotics and physical intelligence.
