Mercedes Benz is making a new bet on a bold vision: cars built by robots.
What’s happening:
- Mercedes Benz has announced they have entered into a new partnership with Austin, Texas based robotics startup Apptronik
- The new partnership will leverage Apptronik’s flagship humanoid robot known as Apollo for the manufacturing and production of new Mercedes Benz automobiles
Why it matters:
- The adoption of humanoid robots have recently been on the rise, with some of the world’s largest companies such as Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) beginning pilot projects to test the effectiveness of robots to be able to perform highly repetitive tasks at their fulfilment centres
- The continual breakthroughs of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology have also been accelerating the potential of humanoid robots, with OpenAI notably forming an official partnership to develop language models for robotics
By the numbers:
- Apptronik’s flagship robot Apollo weighs 166 pounds and is capable of lifting 55 pounds
Going deeper:
- Mercedes Benz is not the first automaker to get into robotics, with BMW previously entering into a partnership with Figure to leverage their humanoid robots for their production facilities
