At the beginning of 2024, the market “recognized” two major Tesla automobile supporting suppliers, Topu Group and Sanhua Intelligent Control, seem to have a tacit understanding in general, and have announced the scale of the robot production base investment plan of 5 billion yuan, and these two news will become a landmark event of the substantial industrialization of humanoid robots.

First of all, on the evening of January 3, Sanhua Intelligent Control announced that the company had signed the “Sanhua Intelligent Control future Industry Center Project Investment Agreement” with the Hangzhou Qiantang New Area Management Committee, which includes the first intelligent frequency conversion controller production base project, robot electromechanical actuators and domain controller research and development and production base project, with a planned total investment of not less than 5 billion yuan.

A day later, on the evening of January 4, Topu Group also announced that the company and the Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone Management Committee signed the “Robot electric drive system research and development production base Project Investment Agreement”. The company intends to invest 5 billion yuan, with a planned land area of 300 mu, to build a robot core parts production base in Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone.

The two news points to the fact that as the “well-known” Tesla motor’s largest supplier in China, and also the first two companies to support the trial production of Tesla Optimus humanoid robot, it has put the large-scale production of the three supporting robots – electromechanical actuators, motors, and controllers on the agenda.

Considering the “gossip” between the two companies and Tesla that has been disclosed, the mass production of Optimus humanoid robots, and even the commercialization process of the entire humanoid robot industry, may not be far away.

 

Industrialization breakthrough

Located in Hangzhou Bay, two important Tesla auto suppliers – Sanhua Intelligent Control and Topu Group, and Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory in Shanghai Lingang across the bay. The two companies are the solid foundation behind half of Tesla’s global electric vehicle production and delivery capacity. Accordingly, benefiting from the rise of Tesla’s electric vehicle business in the past decade, the two companies together have become an important new force in Chinese car manufacturing.

Since 2023, as Tesla’s humanoid robot is getting closer and closer to mass production, the two companies have also become the right-hand arm of Tesla’s humanoid robot layout, and have undertaken the trial production of Tesla’s robot-related components.

In April 2023, Sanhua Intelligent Control mentioned “bionic robot” for the first time in its 2022 fiscal year report, making it clear that the development of bionic robot electromechanical actuators is the company’s focus area, and that the company will strive to go to the era of “machine generation”.

Subsequently, Sanhua Intelligent Control repeatedly mentioned the business trend of “the company’s bionic robot” in its disclosed investor exchanges.

For example, the company clearly mentioned in a recent communication that the company’s actuators include two types of “straight line” and “rotation”, and the accessories need to be adapted to the size of the human body, and the movement needs to be adapted to the characteristics of human movement.

Coincidentally, Topu Group, another Tesla Tier1 supplier, also repeatedly “hinted” last year that it had been supporting the mass production trial production of Tesla humanoid robots, including the research and development characteristics and mass production progress of the two types of actuator assemblies of “straight line” and “rotation”.

In addition, the Topu Group also revealed that Tesla had given extremely optimistic production guidance.

Due to non-disclosure agreements, Tesla’s Tier 1 suppliers cannot “identify themselves.” However, Wu Jianshu, chairman of the top Group, revealed in investor exchanges that the company has cut into the robot industry with “important customers”, and has asked the company to improve trial production capacity, and the company is also investing a lot of capital to support large-scale trial production of the corresponding tooling production line.

“The ‘customer’s’ request to us is to complete 500 robots by the end of the year, hand-manufacturing for tooling molds. In the first quarter, 100 units per week climbed, in the second quarter to 3,000 units per week, such a figure is also very surprising to us.” Wu Jianshu said at an investor meeting last year.

Prospective layout

It is worth noting that before the suspected matching of Tesla humanoid robots, Sanhua Intelligent Control and Topu Group have not matched robot host companies, and are “new recruits” in the robot industry.

In the announcement, neither company explicitly stated that the plan to invest in the production base is to support humanoid robots.

However, the market can still find the possibility of matching humanoid robots from the clues of the two companies’ disclosure of investment plans.

From the perspective of industrial logic, whether it is industrial robots or humanoid robots, they have the concept of universal accessories, and the core components of both include electrical and mechanical drives, actuators and controllers.

From the perspective of commercialization, up to now, industrial robots are mainly used in the field of industrial manufacturing, the industry covers energy, automobiles, 3C manufacturing, etc., and it is also the earliest and most popular industry for the commercialization of the pan-robot industry.

In contrast, there is a question mark over whether humanoid robots really have the “trillion” market that Musk has described.

However, from the perspective of investment scale, the industry is generally recognized as two “5 billion”, which is bound to have a great relationship with humanoid robots.

For example, Sanhua Intelligent control said in the announcement that Xiantu Electronics intends to invest in the construction of Xiantu intelligent frequency conversion controller production base project in Qiantang District, with a planned total investment of no less than 1.2 billion yuan; The company intends to invest in the development and production base of robot electromechanical actuators and domain controllers in Qiantang District, with a planned total investment of no less than 3.8 billion yuan.

Topu Group said that of the 5 billion investment plan, 3 billion yuan is fixed asset investment.

In this regard, Lu Hanchen, director of the high-tech robot Industry Research Institute, told reporters that although from the industrial logic, the products of the two companies can indeed support industrial robots, including collaborative robots. However, in terms of amount and volume, the corresponding scale of investment is difficult to digest only through industrial robots. Therefore, both projects are highly likely to be forward-looking layouts in the field of humanoid robots.

“The collaborative robot market is not enough to support such a large demand for the time being, so the great probability is to make a forward-looking layout for humanoid robot projects,” Lu Han Chen told reporters, “From the current company’s external reply information, 5 billion investment in the field of new energy vehicles domain controller projects accounted for the largest proportion.” The reason why the layout of the robot business is because some of the company’s original customers have entered the industry, and the company is actively following. In addition, the $5 billion investment will be spread out over many years, and the robotics business is a forward-looking layout and will be cultivated as one of the core businesses in the future.”