Liu Run's essay: humanoid robots are stuck on dexterous hands, still busking for cash
创业邦 · wechat · 2026-08-23
Chinese business writer Liu Run offers a "cautiously optimistic" take on humanoid robotics: long-term bullish over 10-20+ years, but the industry is still in a street-performance phase earning travel money. After visiting nearly all major Chinese humanoid makers, he argues today's demos are all "agile legs + simple hands"—leg tech is mature, yet the dexterous manipulation that defines irreplaceable factory jobs (threading seatbelts, pressing clips) has barely progressed.
Two blockers: physics (30 joints needing millisecond control; mini-motors lack torque and overheat; tendon-driven hands have push-force and durability issues) and economics (a robot costing hundreds of thousands replaces a 70k RMB/year worker; costs must fall near 100k RMB to make sense).
Three ways companies survive today: performances exploiting the legs (novelty fading within a year), hand-free factory tasks (still uneconomical), and robot dogs—the nearest to a closed business loop, at 30k RMB for tunnel inspection. Long-term, however, the world is pre-built for human form—stairs, desks, doors—so the humanoid remains the endgame, just a distant one.
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