Toyota Motor Corporation is preparing one of the auto industry's biggest bets on factory robotics: starting in 2028 it plans to spend roughly 1 trillion yen (about $6.4 billion) a year deploying 400,000 humanoid and specialist robots across 60 plants worldwide, according to disclosures reported this week by Digital Today and Seoul Economic Daily.
Ereii, a 50 kg wheeled humanoid
At the centre of Toyota's roadmap is Ereii, an in-house humanoid weighing about 50 kg that rides on a wheeled base and uses a two-fingered gripper. Ereii is being trained by 18,000 veteran "takumi" master workers who guide the robot through complex manual tasks using a jig that mirrors the way a human hand grips parts. Toyota's Production System framework - the same lean methodology that spawned kanban and jidoka - will govern how tasks are decomposed and shared across the fleet.
Split between vehicles and the wider supply chain
Roughly 150,000 of the robots will sit inside Toyota's own auto plants; the remaining 250,000 will be spread across group affiliates that supply parts, materials and logistics. Executive Vice President Hiroki Nakajima framed the plan as a co-existence programme: "Robots are not meant to replace humans. We are aiming for a world where they coexist with people."
A pivot as rivals scale
Toyota's commitment lands as Hyundai is putting Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoids through paces at its Georgia Metaplant training centre, Chinese suppliers are building robots that build robots, and the IFR just reported that 5 million industrial robots are now installed worldwide. If Toyota executes on schedule, its 400,000-unit programme would eclipse most competitors' announced humanoid deployments combined.
Reporting based on coverage from Digital Today and Seoul Economic Daily.