Humanoid Buy #2
Lessons from Asia and Tesla
“According to Morgan Stanley's research, in 2025, the BOM cost of manufacturing a humanoid robot using the Chinese supply chain was about $46,000, while the cost of non - Chinese supply chains was as high as nearly $130,000.”1
It’s no surprise given the figures that Elon Musk, who is well known for going for the most cost-attractive angles, has extended Tesla’s Optimus humanoid supply chain across China. Given the geopolitical climate, this comes with high risks. There are strong political pressures to utilize domestic suppliers as we’ve already seen with chips and other AI-related infrastructure.
However, there’s another angle that Musk regularly takes to reduce costs and that is vertical integration.
The battery is the single most expensive component in an Electric Vehicle (EV). What Tesla did early on is partner with Panasonic to develop EV batteries allowing them to achieve significant cost savings through vertical integration which has given them a structural price advantage.
So the natural question to ask is: What is the most expensive part of a humanoid?
Answer: Actuation
Actuation is made up of many components and if you don’t yet know all of those parts yet please start with this article:
Asia is at least a year ahead of the West in the humanoid trade. My 2nd humanoid stock purchase is a U.S.-listed company that has adapted an approach from what we’ve already seen happening in Asia and taking insights from Tesla.
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