Daily Info Dose

BYD Built a Humanoid Robot: Meet Xiao Di China's biggest carmaker is stepping into the robot race. BYD has unveiled the design of its first self-developed humanoid robot, after its "Embodied AI Robot" design patent was published by China's patent office on 9 October 2026. The robot, previously teased under the name "Xiao Di," stands 1.61 metres tall and weighs 58.5 kilograms. Its body has 31 degrees of freedom, which means it can move and balance in a very human-like way, and its dexterous hand can repeat movements with an accuracy of about one millimetre. According to the patent details, the robot can grasp objects, respond to gestures, and give pointing-based explanations. BYD is aiming it at service, education, and industrial settings — from guiding customers in a shop to helping in a classroom or a factory. One honest note: this is a design and patent reveal, not a finished product you can buy today. But it shows how seriously China's biggest EV ...

China's driverless taxi race just took a big step forward. On 8 October 2026, XPENG officially named its robotaxi service "XPENG YOYO" and opened public registration in China through invitation codes — moving the project from internal testing into real-world commercial operations. According to XPENG, YOYO is China's first fully in-house developed robotaxi to reach pre-loaded mass production. Instead of converting an existing taxi, the vehicle is built from the start as a robotaxi, based on the company's flagship GX SUV. The technology underneath is striking. The car runs on four of XPENG's own Turing AI chips, which the company says deliver 3,000 TOPS of effective computing power. Its second-generation VLA 2.0 system relies on cameras alone — no LiDAR and no high-definition maps — and is designed for Level 4 autonomous driving, where the system handles the driving task itself within defined conditions. This is not just a concept. XPENG says its employees h...