I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

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Robots are so hot right now.

My YouTube feed is filled with videos of robot dinosaurs, robots doing kung fu, folding laundry, organizing things, performing ballet, and doing crazy transformer tricks the likes of which you’ve only otherwise seen in Michael Bay films.

But I’m a big nerd. Your YouTube feed might look different.

Nerddom aside, Morgan Stanley predicts that humanoid robots might be a $5 trillion (with a “t”) market by 2050.

Despite all the fancy videography, research, and investment put into robots that look like people, some problems need to be solved before we can have practical, bipedal, multi-use home or factory robots.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that before robots are “ready to turn a wrench, they must solve what Elon Musk calls ‘the hands problem.’”

Creating the mechanical equivalent of the human hand is a challenge that has been stumping corporate and academic researchers for years.

Elon had plans to put thousands of Optimus robots to work in Tesla factories by the end of the year. Instead, he’s had to shut down Optimus’ production while they try to figure out how to build a better hand.

Rodney Brooks, the MIT professor emeritus who co-founded iRobot (that makes the Roomba vacuum robots), believes companies pouring billions into humanoid robot development are chasing an expensive fantasy.

Among other problems Brooks suggests need to be addressed, he warns that today’s bipedal humanoids are fundamentally unsafe for humans to be near when they walk, due to the massive kinetic energy they generate as they maintain balance. That stored-up energy can cause severe injury if the robot falls or its limbs strike someone.

The hand and kinetic energy problems didn’t stop X1 Technologies CEO, Bernt Børnich, from announcing the 1X NEO home robot on Tuesday. You can order your own NEO for $20,000 (you only need to put down a $200 deposit today), or you can also get a $499 USD subscription if that’s more your jam. The NEO won’t ship until 2026. When it does, it is unclear what capabilities it will be able to execute autonomously.

WSJ’s Joanna Stern spent time with the NEO and Bernt to see what it can really do.

It turns out it can’t do much without a human operator. Stern didn’t see the robot do anything without human guidance. Instead, you need to schedule time for a 1X employee to put on a VR headset and connect to your NEO to guide it through unfamiliar tasks.

At the moment, all tasks appear to be unfamiliar to the machine.

A different robotics company, Beijing-based startup Noetix Robotics, unveiled Bumi, a compact humanoid robot priced around a high-end smartphone ($1,400).

Noetix solved the hand problem by (wait for it) not giving Bumi hands.

Bumi is more of an elaborate toy built for education and research purposes than a functional task robot.

Hand dexterity and falling robots aside, a different set of researchers believe they found a way to accelerate humanoid robot development through Gartner’s hype cycle, past the trough of disillusionment and straight into your home.

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, in collaboration with Peking University and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, developed the World-Omniscient World Model (WoW), the world’s first self-evolving multimodal world model system.

WoW consists of a 14-billion-parameter generative AI world model trained on 2 million real-world robot interactions that combines a physical simulation model with vision-language, enabling robots to “imagine, verify and self-correct.”

They also built WoW on a novel architectural approach called the SOPHIA Paradigm (Self-Optimizing Predictive Hallucination Improving Agent) that helps the model determine physically plausible outcomes. This paradigm is expected to help robots understand what happens when they pick up and move objects, even when they’ve never done those tasks previously.

That’s even more nerd-speak to say, if the promise of WoW is like, wow, then functional humanoid robots might be in your home sooner than you think.

Leapmotor D19 EREV crossover with 80 kWh battery started taking preorders in China. carnewschina.com

Xiaomi delivered over 40,000 cars in October, marking the second consecutive month it has surpassed that mark. cnevpost.com

BYD reported another slump in quarterly profit as intensifying domestic competition and growing industry scrutiny pile pressure on the Chinese carmaker’s sales outlook. autonews.com

The Chinese auto industry is about to have a rude awakening. China’s top policymakers omitted EVs from their list of strategic industries for the 2026-2030 development agenda. OEMs will need to fight it out on their own for profitability. autonews.com

Tesla recalls roughly 10 percent of all Cybertrucks as their lightbars could fall off. mashable.com

Elon defended The Donald on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, stating that while Trump is “not perfect,” he is also “not evil.” benzinga.com

Judge sanctions Tesla for ‘willful’ and ‘deliberate’ violations in fatal crash lawsuit. electrek.co

Tesla’s Cybercab isn’t scheduled to go into production until 2026, but when it does, it may end up with a steering wheel after all. theverge.com

SpaceX is expected to win a $2 billion Pentagon satellite deal. wsj.com

Sam Altman wants a refund for his $50,000 Tesla Roadster deposit. arstechnica.com

Elon wants you to know that Sam got a refund for his Roadster. startupnews.fyi

EVs put an end to China’s usual holiday surge in gasoline use. China’s gasoline consumption peaked in 2023, and the research unit of state oil company Sinopec expects demand to fall more than 4% this year. reuters.com

China becomes Canada’s biggest crude customer thanks to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. finance.yahoo.com

US Army Corps of Engineers approves Enbridge plan to encase aging Great Lakes oil pipeline. finance.yahoo.com

EV batteries are now more than 99% recyclable. electrek.co

VW Group’s PowerCo shrugs off tariffs, starts construction on $7-billion Ontario battery plant. autonews.com

The US currently subsidizes the fossil-fuel industry to the tune of nearly $31bn per year, according to a new analysis. theguardian.com

EIA’s latest monthly “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through August 31, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing among the primary sources of US electricity. electrek.co

Chinese firm HiCloud launched the world’s first commercial underwater, wind-powered data centre in Hainan. futurism.com

Hyundai revealed photos of its IONIQ 9 off-road SEMA concept, an all-electric SUV being developed with YouTubers Jeremiah Burton and Zach Jobe. hyundainews.com

Ford to recall about 79,800 vehicles in the US for door panel and lightbar defects. reuters.com

Ford to recall about 227,000 vehicles in the US for windshield and seat issues. reuters.com

Stellantis announced a collaboration with a diverse range of companies, including Nvidia, Foxconn, and Uber, to launch its own robotaxi service. theverge.com

Former Stellantis Canada President Jeff Hines was grilled at a House Committee meeting over the decision to move production to the US. autonews.com

Stellantis workers in Brampton feel betrayed over the company’s decision to shift production to the US. theglobeandmail.com

GM cuts thousands of EV and battery factory workers. techcrunch.com

Waabi unveils autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo. techcrunch.com

Aurora has added a 600-mile driverless route from Fort Worth to El Paso, the autonomous-vehicle technology company’s second for its self-driving trucks. techcrunch.com

Uber to launch a premium robotaxi service to compete with Waymo in San Francisco. techcrunch.com

Lucid is using Nvidia’s technology to build a fully autonomous car that it can sell to customers. theverge.com

Waymo said it plans to donate to a local animal rights organization after a beloved corner store cat in San Francisco’s Mission District was struck and killed by one of its driverless cars Monday night. kron4.com

NHTSA is investigating Waymo robotaxis for passing a stopped school bus. electrek.co

Slate Auto partnered with RepairPal to use their network of more than 4,000 locations across the US to offer service and repairs to future customers. arstechnica.com

Canadian parts supplier Magna is not considering a move to the US. autonews.com

Dutch chipmaker Nexperia has suspended wafer supplies to its Chinese assembly plant, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters and addressed to its customers, which could exacerbate a supply squeeze that is worrying automakers worldwide. reuters.com

Nexperia is at the heart of a standoff between the EU, the US, and China that has triggered a near-crisis for global automakers. The auto industry’s chip supply chain hangs in the balance, threatening vehicle production worldwide as companies warn of looming shortages of Nexperia’s components. cnbc.com

Japanese automakers are considering importing some of their US-built cars to Japan. It is a costly and impractical move that comes as Tokyo tries to placate The Donald over its trade surplus with the US. reuters.com

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