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In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen · 5 min · Sep 30, 2026
Car suppliers may have an edge in the robotics race
Kai Yu says meaningful humanoid-robot volumes may still be five years away, but argues that automotive suppliers are well positioned. Car-scale production can improve the cost and performance of robot components.
Kai Yu is founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics.
Nicolai Tangen, Host · CEO, Norges Bank Investment Management
About this segment
Kai Yu says meaningful humanoid-robot volumes may still be five years away, but argues that automotive suppliers are well positioned. Car-scale production can improve the cost and performance of robot components.
From “Horizon Robotics CEO: Car Chips, Mind-Off Driving and China's Speed | Podcast | In Good Company”, Sep 30, 2026. Watch the full episode
Answers “What will AI look like in the next few years?” See all 89 answers
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
“My argument is if you are a winner for automotive supply chain, and you're going to be a winner for robotics.”
Takeaways
- Yu estimates meaningful humanoid-robot volumes are five years away.
- Automotive suppliers already make relevant sensors and actuators.
- Car production scale can improve component cost and performance.
In this episode
Full episode- 14:16Kai Yu’s roadmap to hands-off and mind-off driving4:58
- 11:47Long automotive cycles create a high barrier to entry2:43
31:21Car suppliers may have an edge in the robotics race4:52
- 5 more moments in the full episode
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 31:31
Tell me about the speed of development of humanoid robots in China now. Well, you know what? It's crazy. Again, there are like hundreds of such companies. It's so intense. But I think all of them are still a really long way to go. Yeah. If you look at the automatic driving, you know, how many years? I think Horizon Robotics probably is the first automatic driving. startup uh in china right but we will be already working here for 11 years and but now you're top two and now you're top two in in robotics and now human robots i think it will take many years to go what do you do what do you do inside the robot what is your uh what is your software do?
- 32:25
We supply chip solutions. Yeah. And for robots, we are not so much into the software. Yeah, we are supplying chips to the robot companies. When do you think we'll have meaningful volumes of humanoid robots coming? Five years if we're optimistic. Yeah. I know I'm a little bit conservative compared to many other guys. And I try to be, you know, objective. And also partially as a CEO, as a founder, I'm basically a technology guy.
- 33:11
So I think then I'm a little bit more conservative and also objective. What will you personally use them for? I think the number one scenario is home service. Yeah, you know, I think for each of the family, we enjoy all the fun things, but we don't enjoy many of the tedious work. Yeah, like, you know, cleaning tables after dinner. Yeah, sometimes we like cooking, but we don't like cleaning. I have a theory that divorce rates will go down when you don't have to do boring things anymore.
- 33:57
Exactly. You don't have to take out the rubbish or walk the dog. Yeah. There's another thing, which is, you know, China is facing very terrible Asian society issue. I mean, it's coming so quick, quite unexpectedly. Right. The problem, the issue is getting worse, actually, compared to Europe and even Japan. So I think, you know, what about elderly care? What about the lacking of laborers? So this is going to be a huge social and economical challenge for China.
- 34:40
What's the overlapping supply chain between self-driving cars and robotics? I think almost the same. So if you win the EV race, you'll win the robotics race. Yeah, that's fundamentally what I believe. My argument is if you are a winner for automotive supply chain, and you're going to be a winner for robotics. If you look at the actuators, all the mechanical things, All the sensors like the lasers, you know, radars, I think currently apply to cars.
- 35:28
And then because car business is a big volume and then over competition, all the suppliers will continuously improve, you know, the cost structure, the performance, you know, and make it very compact. Right. Very compact. in the phone fact. So it's going to make those guys with very strong position for robotics business. Just like many of the companies for who were winners for the mobile phone supply chain.