> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://news.theresarobotforthat.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Goldman Sachs Bets Carmakers Will Mass-Produce Humanoids - URL: https://news.theresarobotforthat.com/goldman-sachs-bets-carmakers-will-mass-produce-humanoids/ - Published: 2026-09-02T10:30:30.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-02T10:30:29.000Z - Description: Musk's billion-robot bet, Nyobolt's $1 billion battery valuation, and the founder who wants to pop the humanoid hype. - Author: Ulrich Baldauf - Tags: Newsletter ### The Big Number Goldman Sachs now expects the world to buy 6.48 million humanoid robots in the year 2035, nearly five times what it forecast before. ## Welcome back to your Robot Briefing This week the humanoid story was about money and doubt at the same time. A major bank told its clients the market will be far bigger than it thought and that carmakers will build it, while one of the few founders with robots actually working asked everyone to calm down. Underneath the forecasts and the hype, the real action was industrial. A country ordered autonomy by the thousand, and a quieter reminder landed that the hardest problem left is the robot's hand, not its head. The 60-Second Read Goldman Sachs nearly quintupled its 2035 humanoid forecast to 6.48 million units and named carmakers as the builders. Saudi Arabia lined up thousands of autonomous trucks by 2030, the first slice of physical AI bought at national scale. Agility's co-founder, who has humanoids working at Amazon and GXO, wants to pop the hype bubble around dancing robots. The bottleneck for physical AI is increasingly the gripper, not the AI model behind it. News ### Goldman Sachs Bets Carmakers Will Mass-Produce Humanoids ![Bar chart comparing Goldman Sachs' previous 2035 humanoid robot forecast of 1.38 million units to the updated forecast of 6.48 million units, alongside a projected market value of 138 billion dollars.](https://res.cloudinary.com/duuood1js/image/upload/f_webp,q_auto/v1788315431/theresarobotforthat/C245-infographic-2026-09-02.png) Image Source: There's A Robot For That **Snapshot:** Goldman Sachs [raised](https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/goldman-sachs-raises-humanoid-robot-forecast-sees-auto-role-93CH-4882346?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) its 2035 humanoid robot forecast to 6.48 million units, nearly five times its earlier call of 1.38 million, and named the auto industry as the sector best equipped to build them at scale. Breakdown: The bank now sizes the 2035 humanoid market at about $138 billion, up from a prior estimate near a third of that. It ranked global automakers on three tests: intent to enter humanoids, stagnation in the core car business, and the financial and operational capacity to fund a new line. Tesla and Hyundai came out as the most active carmakers in humanoids today, with Toyota flagged among Japanese firms as well positioned. Goldman estimated Toyota alone could build 190,000 to 540,000 humanoid units in 2035, a 3 to 8 percent slice of the global market. **Takeaway:** The signal for operators is where the supply will come from. If the humanoids on your line in a decade are built on automotive production systems, expect car-industry economics to follow, meaning standardized parts, high-volume pricing and long warranty programs, but also the same supplier concentration that shapes the car market today. News ### Saudi Arabia Orders Physical AI at National Scale **Snapshot:** HUMAIN and Applied Intuition [agreed](https://www.appliedintuition.com/press-releases/applied-intuition-humain-physical-ai-saudi-arabia?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) to build what they call the world's largest autonomous trucking network across Saudi Arabia, the first step in deploying physical AI at national scale. Breakdown: The plan puts thousands of autonomous trucks on key Saudi freight corridors by 2030, starting with long-haul trucking before other uses. From there the partners intend to expand into robotaxis, ports, mining, manufacturing, agriculture and construction. Applied Intuition supplies its physical-AI stack, including a Self-Driving System already running on Level 4 trucks plus its Vehicle OS. The company is opening a Riyadh office and framing the deal as a long-term commercial partnership, not a pilot. **Takeaway:** This is what national-scale autonomy procurement looks like, a sovereign buyer treating physical AI as infrastructure rather than a lab project. For operators outside the Gulf it sets a reference point, because when a government underwrites the freight network, the volume and the standards it demands start to pull vendors and pricing in its direction. ⏱️ The Compliance Clock This week's forecast points humanoids straight at American car plants, which puts them under the US safety regime rather than the European one. For robots on a US floor the baseline is ANSI/RIA R15.06, the national standard for industrial robot safety, backed by OSHA, whose general duty clause obliges employers to protect workers from recognized hazards even where no robot-specific rule exists yet. A humanoid that walks between work zones does not fit the fixed-cage assumptions those rules were written around, so the task-based risk assessment is the part that needs rethinking before deployment. News ### Agility's Founder Wants to Pop the Humanoid Hype ![Agility's Founder Wants to Pop the Humanoid Hype](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9c/a6/9ca6316d-1f3a-4d33-b3e6-87f231933bbb/content/images/2026/09/story-2026-09-02-2.jpg) Image source: Agility Robotics **Snapshot:** Jonathan Hurst, co-founder of Agility Robotics, [told](https://www.chronline.com/stories/oregon-robotics-company-says-the-industry-needs-a-reality-check-i-really-want-to-pop-that,407333?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) an Oregon reporter he wants to pop the hype bubble around humanoids, arguing that real work is far harder than the viral videos of robots dancing and running suggest. Breakdown: Agility's Digit stands 5 feet 9 inches and does warehouse work, lifting and stacking heavy boxes rather than performing for cameras. Digit already operates in facilities run by Amazon, Toyota and the logistics firm GXO, a short list of paying deployments. Hurst's point is that useful, repetitive labor adds to productivity even though it makes for a dull social clip. The comment lands against a market where most humanoids shown this year were demos, not machines with a job. **Takeaway:** The reality check is useful for anyone scoping a pilot. Ask a vendor what a robot does for eight hours, not what it does for thirty seconds on camera, and weigh a boring box-moving deployment that runs today against a spectacular demo that does not yet ship. News ### The Hand Is Where Physical AI Still Breaks **Snapshot:** Robot makers are learning that better hands, not just smarter models, decide whether physical AI works, and end-of-arm tooling vendor OnRobot [laid out](https://www.therobotreport.com/how-better-grippers-can-unlock-physical-ai/?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) why the gripper is the bottleneck. Breakdown: A model can infer that an object should be picked up, but the gripper has to make contact, apply the right force and confirm the object is secure, every time. Robot motion is relatively mature, while real-world manipulation stays hard because it depends on physical variables that cannot be modeled perfectly. Grippers with adjustable parameters and force feedback let a system handle variation in part size, shape and material that a rigid tool cannot. Without a reliable execution layer, the intelligence in a foundation model has limited practical value on the floor. **Takeaway:** For plants evaluating physical AI, the lesson is to test the hand, not just the brain. A pilot that grips one clean part in a lab tells you little, so the number that matters is the reliable pick rate across the messy range of parts your line actually runs. ▶ Operator's Playbook If you run US sites, pull your existing industrial-robot risk assessments this week and check whether they cover a mobile humanoid that leaves its work cell. ANSI/RIA R15.06 and OSHA's general duty clause already govern robots on a US floor, but a machine that walks between zones needs its own task-based hazard analysis, not the fixed-arm one you filed years ago. Model the cost of that assessment now, before a pilot, so compliance is a planned line item and not a surprise at deployment. [Get the Toolkit →](https://theresarobotforthat.com/safety-compliance-kit/?utm%5Fsource=newsletter&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=playbook) ### Other Top Robot Stories **Elon Musk** [predicted a billion humanoid robots within a decade](https://finance.yahoo.com/video/musk-predicts-1-billion-humanoid-142532064.html?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) at the G20 Innovation Ministerial, arguing each machine could be roughly five times as productive as a human worker. **Nyobolt** [hit a $1 billion valuation](https://nyobolt.com/resources/news/nyobolt-closes-series-c-round-at-1b-valuation-to-power-the-rise-of-autonomous-machines-physical-ai-applications-and-ai-data-centres/?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) for its ultrafast-charging batteries, pitched to keep warehouse and autonomous robots running with charge times measured in minutes rather than hours. **FarmDroid** [scaled up its autonomous seeder-weeder](https://farmdroid.com/products/farmdroid-fd60/?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) with the new FD60, a larger field robot built to seed and mechanically weed row crops on bigger farms without chemicals. **Burro** [built a field robot designed to work year-round](https://www.therobotreport.com/burro-introduces-grande-44-with-proven-outdoor-autonomy-built-for-heavy-industry/?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) rather than sit idle between seasons, positioning one autonomous platform to carry, tow and haul across nurseries, orchards and vineyards. **Agri Spray Drones** [announced a pivot to US-based manufacturing](https://www.roboticstomorrow.com/news/2026/08/31/agri-spray-drones-announces-next-chapter-as-agricultural-drone-manufacturer-and-technology-company-/27015/?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) , moving from spray-drone distributor to builder with a roadmap to source most of each drone's cost domestically by 2028. Compliance tool Where does your robot documentation stand? The ISO 10218:2025 Gap Analysis Checklist finds every gap in 62 audit questions. [Get the checklist ($49) →](https://theresarobotforthat.lemonsqueezy.com/checkout/buy/e01e6740-edbc-41f2-b845-8822e7258aa7?ref=news.theresarobotforthat.com) **🤖 Your robotics thought for today:** The same week a bank told everyone humanoids would be a market worth more than a hundred billion dollars, the person whose robots actually clock in for work asked us to expect less. Both can be true. The forecast is about the decade, the reality check is about Tuesday, and it is Tuesday that pays the bills. Until Friday, Uli