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On November 5, 2026, after visiting Unitree's Hangzhou factory, Josef Chen offered his assessment, saying he is more optimistic about Western robot manufacturing. He pointed out that Unitree's robots are still mainly assembled by hand; in 2025 its machinery assets were about $1.7 million and it produced nearly 32,000 robots that year, with manual labor accounting for about 8% of costs. He believes that Unitree's self-built automated motor line reduces the cost of a single robot model by only about 1.7%, while under U.S. wages the manual labor share would rise to about 40%, so the West has a greater opportunity in the machines that manufacture robot production lines.
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After visiting Unitree's factory, Josef Chen said he is more optimistic about the West
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Nov 5
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After visiting the Unitree factory, why I am more optimistic about Western robot manufacturing
After visiting Unitree's Hangzhou factory, Josef Chen pointed out that Unitree's robots are still mainly assembled by hand; in 2025 its machinery assets were about $1.7 million, and it produced nearly 32,000 robots that year, with labor accounting for about 8% of cost. He believes that Unitree's self-built automated motor line reduces the cost of a single robot model by only about 1.7%, while under U.S. wages the labor share would rise to about 40%, so the West has a greater opportunity in the machines that manufacture robot production lines. The article also mentions the production line progress of Western manufacturers such as Figure, Tesla, and 1X, as well as the FCC rule requiring 65% of humanoid robot components to be made in the United States.