China’s CATL said it has become the world’s first battery manufacturer to deploy humanoid robots at scale in battery pack production, replacing human workers in several high-risk and precision-critical processes.
The company said a humanoid robot-enabled battery pack production line has recently begun operations at its manufacturing base in Luoyang, Henan province, marking what it described as the first large-scale application of humanoid robots in battery pack manufacturing.
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The humanoid robot, named “Xiaomo”, is capable of executing complex tasks such as battery connector insertion, a function CATL said represents a milestone in the industrial application of embodied intelligence. Xiaomo has replaced human operators in the End-of-Line (EOL) and Direct Current Internal Resistance (DCR) stages of battery pack production, which involve final functional testing before products leave the line.
These processes traditionally relied on manual labour, requiring workers to connect high-voltage test plugs carrying hundreds of volts to precise locations on battery packs, exposing them to risks such as electrical arcing and inconsistent quality outcomes, CATL said.
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Xiaomo uses an end-to-end Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model, allowing it to perceive its environment, interpret tasks and execute actions autonomously. The robot can adapt in real time to variations such as component position deviations and changes in connection points, dynamically adjusting posture and force when handling flexible wiring harnesses to avoid damaging components.
In production use, Xiaomo has achieved a connection success rate of more than 99%, with cycle times comparable to those of experienced human workers, CATL said. The robot can also detect connection status autonomously, flag anomalies in real time and switch to inspection mode during operational pauses, contributing to lower defect rates.
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CATL said the humanoid robot’s daily workload is around three times higher than manual labour, while maintaining consistent performance across multiple battery pack models.
Xiaomo was developed by Spirit AI, a Hangzhou-based robotics company founded in 2024 and backed by CATL. The battery maker said it plans to use the deployment as a foundation for expanding automation and intelligent manufacturing across its battery pack production lines.
