Toyota Motor Corporation plans to deploy humanoid robots across its global manufacturing operations from 2028, including having them work alongside humans in the same work areas, according to local reports.

The Japanese automaker is understood to be planning to gradually deploy up to 400,000 in-house-developed humanoid robots across its global production operations, with the robots to be introduced as part of upgrades of existing factory when new vehicle models are introduced and when new production capacity is added.

Toyota is said to be planning to invest JPY 1 trillion (U$$ 6.4 billion) annually from 2028, starting with the introduction of some 150,000 humanoid robots at its headquarters plants, with a further 250,000 planned to be rolled out at the group’s 60 production facilities worldwide.

The robots to be deployed include Toyota newly developed in-house ‘ELEY’ (Embodied Learning robot for Enhanced Yield), a battery-powered wheeled robot weighing around 50 kg. The robot is said to be capable of undertaking tasks such as picking up components from boxes and placing them where required, and folding fabrics. The robots are said to be currently undergoing a learning process, including learning the movements and tasks of workers on the production lines.

Toyota will centralise this learned data, which it will use to programme new robots and even create an environment in the future where robots take charge of training new employees. The company stated that “robots are not meant to replace humans, but will coexist with humans."