Leapmotor (HKEX: 9863) has officially confirmed its entry into embodied robotics, CFO Li Tengfei told analysts on the company's H1 2026 interim earnings call on August 25, 2026 — one day after cross-town rival Xpeng carved out its Dogotix robotics unit at a $6.3B valuation, setting a new benchmark for Chinese humanoid programs.
A new subsidiary run by the powertrain chief
Leapmotor's robotics vehicle is Huzhou Lingsheng Precision Manufacturing Co. Ltd., quietly registered in late July with a business scope covering industrial-robot manufacturing, intelligent-robot development and auto-parts production. Wu Cun — the senior VP who runs Leapmotor's electric-drive product line — is listed as legal representative. Assigning the motor and torque-control lead, rather than a software executive, telegraphs which competency Leapmotor believes transfers most cleanly from EVs to humanoids: precision joint actuation, motor-control firmware and power electronics.
Why every Chinese automaker is now a robot company
Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng has argued that up to 70% of an automaker's technology reserves can be replicated onto humanoids; CITIC Securities pegs hardware supply-chain overlap — motors, sensors, batteries, cameras, compute — at north of 60%. The economic pull is just as real: China's auto profit margin sat at a decade-low 4.1% in 2025, and Leapmotor's own gross margin slipped to 11.7% in H1 2026 from 14.1% a year earlier, pushing Li to trim the full-year net profit target to roughly RMB 3B from RMB 5B. Higher-margin robotics, sharing the same supply chain, is the obvious hedge.
The Stellantis wildcard
Where Leapmotor is genuinely differentiated is distribution. Through Leapmotor International — the 51/49 Stellantis-led joint venture — it has access to more than 850 European sales-and-service points and a Zaragoza, Spain manufacturing plant scheduled to start B10 SUV production in October. Stellantis paid roughly €1.5B for a ~20% Leapmotor stake in 2023. Whether any future Leapmotor robot moves through that channel remains open, but no other Chinese EV entrant in humanoids has a comparable European footprint.
What the September 16 event must answer
Li declined to disclose product form, timeline or investment scope, deferring specifics to a September 16 technology event in Huzhou, Zhejiang. That agenda spans a new world model for assisted driving, battery and electric-drive advances, and the robotics business — analysts will want form-factor (humanoid, industrial arm or wheeled?), first customer (own factories, enterprise, consumer?), and whether Stellantis is in scope. Leapmotor now joins a crowded field of Chinese humanoid programs anchored by Xpeng's IRON, BYD's Yao-Shun-Yu program, Chery's AiMOGA and roughly 20 global automakers racing into embodied AI.
Reporting based on Leapmotor's H1 2026 interim earnings call, CnEVPost, Tech Times and BigGo Finance.