A tier-one car-parts maker will mass-produce the gearboxes humanoid robots need, starting 2027

Schaeffler said on 21 August it has finished validation testing on formed strain wave gearboxes built specifically for humanoid robots and will manufacture them at scale from 2027. The company puts actuators at roughly half the total build cost of a humanoid, and those gearboxes are the core of an actuator. Schaeffler says it already runs humanoids across its own value chain, which is where it got the requirements.

What it means Humanoid pricing has been held up by hand-built actuators; an established supplier committing a production line to them is what moves the cost curve.