Carmakers have become some of the largest backers of humanoid robots, investing heavily on the bet that their expertise in mass-producing complex machines, cars, transfers directly to building robots at scale. An assembly line that can turn out vehicles reliably is, in principle, well suited to turning out robots too.
Manufacturing at scale is often the harder half of robotics, because a machine that works in a lab is worth little if it cannot be produced reliably and affordably, and this is exactly what carmakers are good at.
What it means: the moment established manufacturers move robots onto real production lines is when prices start to fall and delivery times shorten. Businesses curious about robotics should watch which industries are funding it, because manufacturing muscle, more than any demo video, signals a technology getting close to buyable.