Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Thursday, Jan. 8.
At CES, it's not just cars that have our attention..
The evolution of robots is on full display at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and the auto industry is watching. Robots have transformed, are transforming and will continue to transform automotive manufacturing.
Our Richard Truett swung by the convention center's North Hall and filed this video report. Here are his observations:
The sprawling West Hall at CES is where most of the automotive technology is on display. But the next hall over — the North Hall that contains robot companies — is a wonderful, scary sight to see.
While Hyundai made news here earlier this week with plans to eventually deploy as many as 30,000 humanoid robots at plants carrying out activities that require mostly repetitive movements, all you have to do is walk over to the North Hall to see that robot technology is capable of a stunning array of far more fluid and natural movements than simple repetitive tasks.
After spending a couple of hours watching robot displays from nearly a dozen companies, I left the North Hall wondering what else robots might do besides lifting heavy crates of parts and moving components into position on assembly lines.
Well, people cost money, and if robots can replace humans, not just on the assembly line, it will add up across an automaker's empire. A Unitree G1 dubbed the 'Iron Fist King' is a robot that was built for fighting. It knows karate, and it could replace security guards that are stationed at plants and elsewhere.
Not far from the Unitree G1 display, I spotted the Rover X1 from a company called Infinity. The X1 is a low-slung, wheeled or legged, highly mobile robot that could patrol plants and office buildings, and if there are interlopers, I imagine the X1 could call for the Iron Fist King to engage them.
MagicLab also showed a highly mobile vision-equipped caninelike robot that could also be used for security.
Other robots on display performed a number of tasks that could see automakers jettison human employees. A somewhat odd-looking robot from Unix AI made tea, while Wanda, another robot could make three other drinks ... and she did on demand. Automated food displays such as the one from VenHub could render the old-fashioned plant cafeteria as obsolete as a carburetor.
Interesting stuff — with far-reaching implications for the auto industry and beyond.
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— Omari Gardner, managing editor, operations
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