Today's highlights

· Tesla's registered Cybercab count in Texas rose by about 57 in one day, reaching 126 vehicles

· On the same day Zoox's 100-vehicle cap in Nevada expired, a Zoox vehicle crashed on the Las Vegas Strip; the other driver was taken to hospital

· The FDA released a draft guidance on premarket submissions for robotically-assisted surgical devices, with a workshop on autonomous and remote surgical robots planned for December

· SoftBank invests $225 million in ASI, with the two forming a joint venture for autonomous construction machinery

· The average price of LimX Dynamics' (Chinese humanoid robot maker) Kuafu humanoid fell from over 410,000 yuan to just over 300,000 yuan, with sales volume up roughly 18-fold year over year

Autonomous Solutions (ASI) | SoftBank strategic investment + joint venture | $225 million · autonomy

SoftBank is investing $225 million in Utah-based ASI, and the two companies are also forming a joint venture to develop autonomous construction machinery for large infrastructure projects, starting with earthmoving and on-site material handling. The joint venture's funding scale, ownership structure, and name have not been disclosed. ASI's flagship product is Mobius, fleet-dispatch software that can take over work vehicles from major equipment brands, letting construction firms keep their existing equipment. This month SoftBank also agreed to acquire the RAI Institute, a deal still under CFIUS review.Source: Business Wire

Archer to acquire Boeing's Wisk, SkyGrid, and Insitu | HSR antitrust waiting period expires | Amount undisclosed · autonomy

The deal's HSR antitrust waiting period expired at 11:59 PM ET on September 18. Other regulatory approvals and standard closing conditions have not yet been completed, and Archer still expects to close by the end of 2026. The three companies each bring different capabilities: Wisk has built six generations of eVTOL aircraft with over 1,700 test flights; SkyGrid develops automated airspace management software; and Insitu has produced more than 3,500 drones in use by militaries in 35 countries. According to Boeing and Archer, the three companies' combined flight hours are close to 2 million hours. After closing, Boeing will still be able to use Wisk's autonomous flight technology and will continue to hold shares in Archer.Source: AI Insider source

Tesla's registered Cybercabs in Texas rise by about 57 in one day, reaching 126 · autonomy

A week ago, Texas Cybercab registrations stood at 67. By September 26, a Texas autonomous vehicle tracking platform showed the count had reached 126 vehicles. On September 25 alone, about 57 were added, all Cybercabs. Tesla's total Robotaxi registrations in Texas now stand at 546 vehicles, including 420 Model Ys. The total has more than doubled over the past 30 days, up from about 269. Registration is only the legal precondition for commercial operation; the number of vehicles actually taking passengers is much smaller. Reporting from September 22 showed that over the previous 7 days, only 8 vehicles in Austin were actually carrying passengers. The gap between registration numbers and passenger-carrying numbers has widened again.Source: Autohome source; Tesla Oracle source

Injury crash on the Las Vegas Strip the same day Zoox's fleet cap expired · autonomy

On the morning of September 25 local time, a Zoox robotaxi collided with a Nissan Murano at the intersection of the Las Vegas Strip's southbound lanes and Four Seasons Drive. The Murano's driver was taken to hospital, and the Nevada Highway Patrol is still investigating fault. On the same day, the 100-vehicle fleet cap that Nevada's transportation authority had set for Zoox expired. According to TechCrunch, Robotaxi Tracker estimates Zoox is operating more than 30 vehicles locally; a Zoox spokesperson did not say how many vehicles it plans to add or how many are currently running. Zoox only began charging fares in Las Vegas on August 10. On August 25, one of its empty vehicles was rear-ended at an intersection while yielding to an ambulance. It has previously issued two software recalls: 258 vehicles in March 2025 over a hard-braking issue, and 332 vehicles in December of that year over issues with crossing lane lines and stopping in front of oncoming traffic.Source: Hoodline source; TechCrunch

Kodiak designates Dallas–Houston as its first driverless long-haul route · autonomy ⚠️ company's own account of a plan

Kodiak says its freight runs from its Lancaster hub to Houston can now consistently complete the full route without human intervention, and its target remains removing in-cab safety drivers on highway routes by the end of 2026. Its internal metric for measuring how complete its long-haul safety case is reached 93% by late August, up from 91% in July. The company acknowledges in SEC filings that this metric is self-defined and weighted by management judgment. It is already running driverless trucks commercially: as of the end of Q2, 35 trucks with no one in the cab were operating commercially in the Permian Basin. However, that is a closed industrial setting; highway routes require a separate safety case.Source: Dallas Express source

Didi's R2 debuts at the Digital Trade Expo, hardware cost down 74%, signs agreement with Hangzhou's Yuhang district · autonomy ⚠️ company's own account

The new-generation Robotaxi R2, developed by Didi Autonomous Driving in partnership with GAC Aion, reportedly has a hardware platform cost 74% lower than the previous generation. The vehicle carries 33 sensors, and its tri-domain fused central computing platform has more than 2000 TOPS of GPU compute. Didi says the vehicle was delivered in January 2026 and has moved into routine public road testing. Currently, fully driverless passenger service is only available within demonstration zones in Beijing's Yizhuang district and Guangzhou's Huangpu district; when both pickup and drop-off points are within the zone, users can hail the vehicle directly through the Didi app. During the Digital Trade Expo, Didi signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Yuhang district, planning to roll out autonomous driving applications in Hangzhou.Source: Caiwen source; Sina Finance source

Full-size bionic humanoid priced at 26,800 yuan; Lingze Dynamics (Chinese robotics startup) claims tens of units sold monthly · humanoid ⚠️ company's own account

Lingze Dynamics' bionic humanoid "Baibian Xiaoling" was priced at the Digital Trade Expo: 26,800 yuan for the full-size version and 19,800 yuan for the half-body version. It uses silicone with real-skin-level texture, with an electronic skin array across the face. Deputy general manager Qi Pengcheng said combined monthly sales of the two versions are "in the high tens of units," with buyers mainly from hotels, tourism/culture, and elder-care settings. Customized versions cost "tens of thousands of yuan more" than the standard version.Source: Caiwen source

Tesla's Optimus weekly output rises to the hundreds; hand assembly still done by hand · humanoid ⚠️ single source

The Information reports that Tesla converted its Model S and Model X production lines for Optimus this year, and last month was already producing "several hundred units" per week; other outlets are relaying this report, making it a single-source claim. In the currently produced V3 version, the hands and forearms contain more than 100 screws and small parts that must be assembled manually by workers; these robots are still only doing specific tasks within designated areas inside Tesla.Source: The Verge source; EE Times China source

FDA releases draft guidance on premarket submissions for robotically-assisted surgical devices · adjacent

On September 24, the US FDA released draft guidance targeting robotically-assisted surgical devices (RASD). The FDA defines these as teleoperated, software-controlled systems that help physicians position and manipulate instruments, applicable to open, minimally invasive, and endoluminal surgery. The draft offers recommendations on nonclinical testing, clinical data, and labeling for premarket submissions, with a focus on human factors testing, emergency response procedures, software interoperability, and cybersecurity. The comment period closes on November 24. The FDA will also hold a workshop in December specifically addressing the technical, safety, and regulatory challenges of autonomous and remote surgical robots. This draft guidance covers only teleoperated systems with a physician in the loop; autonomous surgery will be addressed at the December workshop.Source: MobiHealthNews source; Federal Register

LimX Dynamics' Kuafu average price down about a quarter over two years, sales up roughly 18-fold · humanoid

In an interview with Xinhua Finance, LimX Dynamics founder Leng Xiaokun gave a set of figures: the average price of the Kuafu series fell from over 410,000 yuan in 2024 to just over 300,000 yuan in 2025, with sales volume up roughly 18-fold year over year, and annual sales revenue for the single series exceeding 178 million yuan. The localization rate for core components in China rose from under 5% in 2018 to 95%, and a Foshan production line with capacity for tens of thousands of units annually was completed in March this year. According to the company's draft IPO prospectus, revenue grew from 53.9883 million yuan in 2023 to 258 million yuan in 2025, with overseas/international revenue accounting for about 1% in the same period. LimX Dynamics does not build its own foundation model: Kuafu VLA 1.0 is built on the foundation model from Ant Group's Lingbo (Ant Group's embodied-AI unit), with additional vertical-domain training using real-robot data. A cerebellum-equivalent base model is planned for release by the end of September. Leng Xiaokun said: "From a manufacturing perspective, there's no 'GPT moment' for this—it won't explode overnight the way software does."Source: Xinhua Finance source

Wang Xingxing: millimeter-level error is robotics' core challenge; Unitree's 3-million-yuan-plus mech suit remains unsold · humanoid

At the Digital Trade Expo, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said that a robot's perception, decision-making, and motor execution each carry some deviation, and these deviations accumulate along the way. By the time a task reaches fine, final steps like grasping or assembly, an error of just a few millimeters can't self-correct, and the task fails. "Whoever solves this millimeter-level physical-world alignment problem in the future will have essentially solved robotics' core challenge." He predicted embodied AI will have its own "ChatGPT moment," with the threshold being a robot completing 80% of tasks via voice commands in 80% of unfamiliar scenarios. On the same day, LimX Dynamics' Leng Xiaokun offered the opposite view. Unitree's GD01 ride-on mech suit on display stands about 3 meters tall, priced on-site at over 3 million yuan. Staff said there had been many inquiries but no units sold yet.Source: Cailianpress source

Skild AI's humanoid robot self-plays 140 years of simulated soccer, learns to play · world-model

On September 22, Skild AI released "Messinator": a humanoid robot built on its S1 foundation model, trained on a virtual soccer field in NVIDIA Isaac Sim. The reward signal is based solely on scoring goals. Its opponent is itself—previously saved versions of its own policy—and whichever new policy wins becomes the opponent for the next round. Over the equivalent of 140 years of simulated self-play, behaviors like dribbling, shielding the ball, tackling, and getting back up after falling all emerged on their own, without being separately rewarded. The policy was then transferred to a real humanoid robot, which can already compete against humans. Skild says it is extending this self-play method to everyday manipulation tasks.Source: QbitAI source

Three-month-old startup Simate claims its first model tops the RoboDojo leaderboard · world-model ⚠️ company's own account

Following its disclosure last week of multiple consecutive funding rounds worth hundreds of millions of yuan, Simate has released its first "general-purpose fast physical system" model, Simate-beta. According to the RoboDojo leaderboard data provided by the company and updated September 23, it ranks first with an average score of 33.95, corresponding to a success rate of 27.96%. The company says the evaluated models were not optimized specifically for this leaderboard. On the same leaderboard, GPT-6 Astra previously reported an average success rate of 22.48%. The model's architecture and scale will be disclosed in a future technical report. Its automated research platform, AutoResearch, already has researchers from institutions including MIT and Tsinghua University participating in closed testing.Source: QbitAI source

Schaeffler establishes embodied-AI robotics company in Taicang · hardware

The new company is named Schaeffler Embodied Intelligence Robotics (Taicang) Co., Ltd., focused on R&D and production of core components and key subsystems for humanoid robots, and will also offer training-iteration and data-sharing services. Schaeffler's product range includes rolling bearings, roller screws, precision reducers, motors, sensors, and rotary/linear actuator modules. The new company plans a R&D center, a digital-intelligent production line, a compute center, and a data collection and training center, and will also deploy humanoid robots on its own production lines. Schaeffler China CEO Zhang Yilin said establishing the robotics company "is a key step for Schaeffler in advancing embodied AI and advanced manufacturing." Schaeffler already signed a cooperation agreement with LimX Dynamics in the first quarter of this year.Source: Autohome source; Xinhua Finance source

Hyundai Motor to invest 8.9 trillion won in Saemangeum, including a robot factory with 15,000-unit annual capacity · industrial ⚠️ plan-stage account

On September 26, Jeollabuk-do province announced Hyundai Motor Group's investment plan for Saemangeum, totaling 8.9 trillion won. Of this, 5.8 trillion won will go toward a 100MW-class AI data center, and 1 trillion won toward a water-electrolysis hydrogen plant producing 18 tons of clean hydrogen daily. There is also a logistics/delivery robot factory with annual capacity of 15,000 units. The provincial government estimates this will generate 16 trillion won in output and 71,000 jobs, figures that come from Hyundai Motor Group's own projections. Jeollabuk-do also plans to establish a "Korea Physical AI Promotion Institute" (working name) and build verification centers for commercial vehicles, agricultural machinery, and construction equipment.Source: The Asia Business Daily source

Robot repair shops in Shenzhen face booking queues; a 12-day repair training course costs 8,000 yuan · adjacent

Lin Feng, founder of a robot "6S" (repair/service) shop in Shenzhen's Longgang district, said rental orders have been up 50% compared to normal since September, with 40-50 orders coming in per week; performance-type robots are in highest demand. Intensive commercial performances have led to more breakdowns, mainly joint damage and cracked casings, with repair costs ranging from a few hundred to several thousand yuan. One repair manager said the underlying control systems and encryption chips are held by manufacturers, so when a core failure occurs, third parties can only send the unit back to the factory. Repair training prices are rising too: a 12-day basic course costs 8,000 yuan, and a hands-on course of 35+ days costs 18,000 yuan. Industry insider Sun Bingsong said new hires typically start at 7,000-8,000 yuan per month. A September 18 report noted that over 90% of rental stalls in Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei electronics market had already shut down; the 50% figure here is specific to one shop.Source: The Paper source