- Li Auto is developing a two-wheeled industrial robot codenamed Nexus for a mid-2026 unveiling.
- The Nexus team, led by former NineRay/Xpeng engineer He Junpei, has under 30 members and reports to President Ma Donghui.
- Li Auto plans to refine hardware in controlled factory settings first, mirroring Tesla’s staged robotics strategy.
The robotics team, codenamed “Nexus,” was formed after hardware specialist He Junpei from NineRay and Xpeng joined the company in 2025.
Li Auto is advancing a robotics project internally, with related research and development having continued for nearly a year, accordign to a Chineses media report citing multiple sources.
The team is internally codenamed “Nexus” and is led by He Junpei, who previously served as a hardware partner at robotics startup NineRay and had also worked with XPeng’s AgiBot robotics team.
According to the report, Li Auto is currently planning two robot product lines: a two-wheeled robot and a bipedal humanoid robot.
Among them, the two-wheeled robot has already completed product preparation and, if progress proceeds smoothly, is expected to be unveiled around midyear. The robot will primarily be used in closed environments such as factory manufacturing.
Sources familiar with the matter said Li Auto’s robotics strategy draws inspiration from Tesla: first refining technological capabilities in controlled scenarios, before gradually expanding toward consumer-facing applications.
The report said Li Auto President Ma Donghui had already pushed for the robotics project to be initiated in 2023.
At the time, however, CEO Li Xiang believed the technological conditions were not yet mature, and the project was temporarily shelved.
It was not until late 2024, as large AI models accelerated development across the robotics sector, that Li Xiang again acknowledged the need to “make early preparations .”
People close to Li Xiang said Li Auto internally believes that the “brain” and “cerebellum” technologies in robotics may eventually move toward open-source development, meaning early investment in algorithm layers may not be essential.
The team therefore decided to begin with embodied hardware, focusing first on building the robot’s physical capabilities.
After He Junpei officially joined Li Auto in April 2025, the Nexus team began taking shape. The team currently has fewer than 30 members and reports directly to President Ma Donghui.
Across the industry, Tesla announced development of a humanoid robot in 2021 and formally unveiled Optimus in 2023. The product has since iterated to its third generation.
Among Chinese automakers, XPeng was an early entrant into robotics, with its robot products evolving from quadruped to bipedal designs.
In November 2025, the company launched its AI robot IRON and plans to begin mass production by the end of this year.
Li Xiang has also recently discussed humanoid robots on social media. He said that if focused on home-service scenarios, humanoid robots could enter households within three years. For Li Auto, however, the first robot product to be commercialized is likely to be the two-wheeled robot designed for factory use.
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