BYD details humanoid sales‑assistant robot Xiao Di

Chinese electric‑vehicle maker BYD is developing a humanoid robot named Xiao Di, revealed through a brief social‑media post from its Zhengzhou experience centre that was quickly removed. The leaked information shows a 160 cm tall, 59 kg robot with 31 degrees of freedom, capable of handling objects up to 1 kg with roughly 1 mm precision. It features 360° vision, real‑time 3D environment modelling, facial, gesture and lip‑movement recognition, and a multilingual speech system that translates six Chinese dialects and six foreign languages.

BYD plans to deploy Xiao Di as a female‑styled assistant in its dealerships, where each outlet could host two to three units to greet customers, demonstrate vehicles and answer queries, and also use the robots on its production lines. The project is part of an intensifying Chinese auto‑industry race that includes Tesla’s Optimus, Xpeng’s Iron, Chery’s Aimoga and SAIC‑GM’s wheel‑based bots, positioning BYD to expand its vertical integration beyond cars and batteries into retail and manufacturing automation.