Mitsubishi Motors will launch mass production of humanoid robots in Japan
English translation from Unibot. Source published 2026-07-27.
Mitsubishi Motors has teamed up with startup Highlanders Inc. for the development and mass production of humanoid robots with artificial intelligence. The companies plan to produce a thousand of these machines per month by the end of 2027. This was reported by Kyodo News.
Partnership with a university startup
The plan gives the automaker direct access to Japan's still weak manufacturing base for industrial humanoids. Mitsubishi Motors said it intends to apply its manufacturing experience. Highlanders will develop universal robots using domestic components.
Factory data from motor line
Mitsubishi Motors plans to introduce humanoids to the engine assembly line at its Kyoto plant. Initial use in a factory is needed to collect data for the development and mass production of AI robots tailored for automotive production.
The source does not provide the characteristics of the robot: neither height, nor weight, nor the number of degrees of freedom. For operators, such omissions make the stated output difficult to verify against the background of real plant needs. What really inspires confidence is the plans to use a real car line as a source of data, rather than as a separate demo stand.
"In Japan, we are the number one batter in mass production" of humanoid robots
Takao Kato, CEO of Mitsubishi Motors
Mitsubishi Motors CEO Takao Kato said the company is thinking about how to put robots into practice while simultaneously assessing their performance. Highlanders head Hiroya Masuoka presented this project as a response to foreign competition: according to him, companies in the United States and China have gone far ahead in the development of humanoids.
Claim for Japanese production
Kyodo writes that companies are considering bipedal robots as one of the options to solve the problem of labor shortages. This is a standard rationale for humanoids, but this statement is more specific than many others - it names a car line and sets a monthly production plan.
Masuoka also noted that there is no company in Japan that can compete with the world giants in the field of “physical AI” - as he called the integration of robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. Highlanders, he said, wants to take a step forward in this area.
The next test is whether Mitsubishi's humanoids can deliver useful, repeatable performance on the Kyoto line before the companies scale up to the coveted thousand machines per month.