Germany’s VDMA, the network organization representing Europe’s machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, has published a futures study outlining four scenarios for humanoid robotics by 2040. Developed with strategy consultancy Z_Punkt and contributions from robotics associations, research institutes, academia, and end users, the study is not a market forecast but a structured framework for industry dialogue about how the humanoid sector might develop across different regulatory, economic, and technological trajectories.

Anne Wendel, Director of Robotics, Automation and Machine Vision at VDMA, told RobotsBeat that most participants in the process expect the industry to land in one of two scenarios – widespread everyday deployment or certified B2B service robots – rather than remaining confined to a niche. But she added a grounding note: “We hear a lot about pilot projects and impressive videos from U.S. or Chinese manufacturers. But let’s be honest: I haven’t seen any humanoid robot truly interacting with people in industry yet. Carrying empty baskets is one thing; deploying them in real, unfixed industrial environments is another.”

The Four Scenarios

The first scenario, Trustworthy Helpers, describes a 2040 in which humanoid robots are affordable, certified, and present in homes and workplaces at scale, operating under strict data protection and safety standards. Europe’s opportunity in this future lies in certification, safety services, and scalable production. The risk is platform dependency – becoming a sales market for AI ecosystems developed elsewhere.

The second scenario, Premium Niche, sees humanoids as high-margin status goods with limited volumes. Europe’s component excellence in precision drives, dexterous hands, and advanced perception would be advantageous, but without AI investment the continent risks being reduced to a hardware supplier for foreign-controlled platforms.

The third scenario, B2B Bot, envisions humanoids as certified workers in logistics, healthcare, and industry, deployed selectively in labor-shortage environments. Europe’s regulatory tradition and integration capability are assets here, but high liability exposure in human-proximity settings is a structural risk.

The fourth scenario, Humanoid Winter, describes a market confined to industrial niches by safety incidents, fragmented standards, and weak public acceptance. Growth stalls, and Europe’s cautious regulatory culture – an asset in the B2B Bot scenario – becomes a liability that accelerates falling behind in physical AI capability.

Europe’s Structural Position

Wendel identified labor shortage as the primary demand driver for humanoids across both Europe and the U.S., and framed the automation question in terms of industrial competitiveness rather than job displacement. “It’s not about killing jobs – we’re beyond that discussion. It’s about keeping jobs in Europe. Without investment in robotics and automation, we will keep losing competitiveness.”

Europe’s structural advantages are real: a full value chain from components to integration, around 3,400 specialized manufacturers in the VDMA network, and existing leadership in safety standards and data protection frameworks that could become global benchmarks. The gap is capital. “China and the U.S. are investing massively. China already scales production at lower costs, and the U.S. has venture capital and AI giants like Nvidia driving expectations. Europe has the technology, the research, and the component manufacturers, but we lack venture capital,” Wendel said.

The VDMA study recommends five actions for Europe: investing in physical AI and cross-industry ecosystems, creating regulatory sandboxes to accelerate real-world testing, strengthening safety standards to avoid incidents that could set back the entire sector, mobilizing private capital through tax incentives and simplified SME access to funding, and leveraging existing component strengths to establish positions in the higher-margin subsystems of the humanoid stack.

The window for European manufacturers to establish competitive positions in humanoid robotics is open, but the study’s framing implies it will not remain so indefinitely.

Hyundai is pressuring Boston Dynamics to rapidly scale production of its Atlas humanoid robot, with the Korean automaker seeking tens of thousands of units for its automotive plants in the coming years, according to a report from Semafor citing former employees. The pressure comes as Boston Dynamics navigates a significant leadership transition: CEO Robert Playter retired in February, followed by the departures of the chief operating officer and chief strategy officer. Senior researchers and engineers have also reportedly left the company.

Boston Dynamics’ statement on the changes framed them as preparation for scale: “These changes are designed to help us prepare for the next chapter of Boston Dynamics, where we will need a structure that supports our ability to mass manufacture robots and rapidly drive scale in this emerging industry.”

The Gap Between Ambition and Current Output

The scale of Hyundai’s demand creates a stark contrast with Boston Dynamics’ current production reality. At CES earlier this year, the company announced a new robotics factory capable of producing 30,000 Atlas robots per year and presented a production-ready version of the Atlas platform. Boston Dynamics is currently producing approximately four Atlas robots per month as it works through the manufacturing ramp-up process.

Closing that gap – from roughly 48 units annually to 30,000 – within a timeframe that satisfies Hyundai’s requirements represents one of the most demanding manufacturing scale challenges in the current humanoid robot industry. The board of directors is reportedly concerned that competitors, with Tesla likely prominent among them, are narrowing the technological and commercial lead Boston Dynamics has held for years in bipedal robotics.

The Strategic Pivot to Commercial Scale

Atlas project general manager Zachary Jackowski, speaking on the Automated podcast last month, addressed both Playter’s departure and the transition from research robot to sellable product. He drew a parallel between the current moment in robotics and the impact of large language models on software. “The magic is the generality,” he said – the ability of modern AI-driven robots to adapt across tasks rather than being confined to single programmed functions.

The retirement of the research-focused Atlas platform and the shift to a commercially oriented successor reflects a deliberate strategic repositioning. Boston Dynamics built its reputation on robotics research and viral demonstration videos. What Hyundai is now demanding is something different: a manufacturable product, delivered at automotive industry scale, on an automotive industry timeline.

Whether the leadership restructuring accelerates or disrupts that transition will become clearer as Boston Dynamics moves through the production ramp-up. The company’s ability to bridge from four units a month to the volumes Hyundai is seeking will be one of the more consequential tests of industrial-scale humanoid manufacturing in the near term.

Hangzhou has deployed a team of 15 traffic management robots at West Lake tourist sites and surrounding roads in Zhejiang Province, making it the first city in the world to operate a coordinated robot traffic police team in live public conditions. The robots, named Hangjingzhixing, were deployed on the first day of China’s Labor Day holiday on May 1, a period of peak tourist traffic at one of the country’s most visited destinations.

While individual robots have previously been used for traffic management in China, the Hangzhou deployment represents the first instance of a purpose-built team operating together across multiple intersections in a real urban environment, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.

Operational Capabilities

Each robot operates continuously for eight to nine hours daily and performs three primary functions: violation detection, traffic direction, and tourist assistance.

On violation detection, the robots use high-performance visual recognition algorithms to identify infractions in real time – including bicycles crossing stop lines, riders not wearing helmets, illegal passengers, and pedestrians entering roadways. Upon detecting a violation, the robot issues a verbal warning directly to the individual. If the behavior continues after three warnings, the incident is transmitted in real time to the Hangzhou Traffic Management Department for human follow-up.

For traffic direction, the robots are synchronized with intersection signal control systems at 0.001-second intervals and carry a gesture database compliant with Chinese Ministry of Public Security standards. They can execute eight traffic direction commands including straight ahead, stop, and left turn.

Tourists can interact with the robots directly by pressing a button and asking questions verbally, receiving real-time traffic updates and location information through audio and on-screen display.

From Event Pilots to Permanent Deployment

The Hangzhou team was not launched without preparation. The robots were piloted over two months at the West Lake Half Marathon and the Hangzhou Women’s Half Marathon, accumulating operational experience in high-density crowd conditions before their public debut during the Labor Day holiday.

The staged rollout – from controlled event environments to permanent urban deployment – reflects a broader pattern in China’s approach to public robotics deployment, where sporting events and tourism periods serve as real-world testing grounds before integration into routine operations.

A source from the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau Traffic Management Department indicated that the robot team is designed to handle routine and repetitive enforcement tasks, freeing human officers to concentrate on accident response, major violations, and road safety inspections. Major Chinese cities are expected to evaluate similar deployments following Hangzhou’s lead.