World’s First Humanoid Robot ‘Xiao Mo’ at CATL Battery Line
On December 17, 2025, CATL’s Zhongzhou base ushered in a historic moment: the world’s first new energy power battery PACK production line to achieve large-scale deployment of humanoid embodying intelligent robots officially went into operation. This marks that embodying intelligence technology is no longer confined to the laboratory and concept demonstration stage, but has truly moved towards large-scale application in real industrial scenarios. The key task on this production line is undertaken by the “Xiao Mo” humanoid robot developed by Qianxun Intelligent Robotics, a CATL ecosystem company.
The emergence of “Xiao Mo” is not simply a matter of “robots replacing human labor,” but a profound transformation of traditional production models. With its superior perception, operation, and learning capabilities, it has overcome the long-standing challenges of “multiple varieties, small batches, and high flexibility” in the production of new energy power batteries, providing a highly valuable model for the development of intelligent manufacturing and the humanoid robot industry.
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Pain Points in Battery Production and Xiao Mo’s Solutions
The production of new energy power batteries, especially the assembly of battery packs, involves numerous stages. Among these, the final functional testing (EOL and DCR testing) before the battery pack leaves the production line is crucial. It requires testing various performance indicators of the battery pack to ensure product quality, which is an essential part of the lithium battery manufacturing process. However, this stage faces many challenges:
- Multi-model, small-batch, high flexibility:With the rapid development of the electric vehicle market, different models of battery packs are emerging one after another, and the production line needs to be able to quickly switch to produce different models of battery packs.
- High-risk operation: EOL and DCR testing require the precise insertion of test plugs carrying hundreds of volts of high voltage into designated positions on the battery pack. This operation relies on manual labor for a long time and poses a risk of high-voltage arcing, which threatens the safety of operators.
- Unstable efficiency and quality: Manual operation is easily affected by factors such as fatigue and concentration, resulting in unstable work efficiency and quality, and even defective products.
These challenges make EOL and DCR testing key bottlenecks restricting battery pack production efficiency and safety. Traditional automation upgrade solutions often fail to meet the demands of “multiple varieties, small batches, and high flexibility,” are costly, and struggle to adapt to rapidly changing production environments.
The emergence of “Xiao Mo” provides a brand-new approach to solving the above problems. It is equipped with an advanced end-to-end vision-language-action (VLA) model, which has powerful environmental perception and task generalization capabilities. It can accurately complete the insertion and connection of battery connectors, replacing the high-risk and high-requirement manual testing process.
Core Intelligence Capabilities of the Humanoid Robot ‘Xiao Mo’
Compared to traditional automated equipment, “Xiao Mo” demonstrates three types of intelligent adaptability that surpass traditional automated equipment:
- Precise Adaptation: Faced with unavoidable deviations in incoming material positions and changes in connection points in actual production, “Xiao Mo” can autonomously perceive these uncertainties and adjust its operating posture in real time to ensure precise docking. This is thanks to its built-in vision system and deep learning algorithms, which enable it to “see” its surrounding environment like a human and make judgments and adjustments based on the actual situation.
- Flexible Manipulation:When inserting or removing flexible wiring harnesses, it can dynamically adjust the applied force to ensure reliable connection while avoiding damage to sensitive and expensive battery components. This requires the robot to have precise force control capabilities, using sensors and algorithms to perceive the magnitude of the applied force in real time and make precise adjustments to avoid excessive or insufficient force.
- High Efficiency and Reliability: Actual production line data shows that “Xiao Mo’s” insertion success rate is consistently above 99%, and its operating cycle time has reached the level of skilled workers. This is not only due to its powerful hardware performance, but also relies on its efficient algorithms and intelligent control system, enabling it to complete various tasks quickly and accurately.
Transforming the Production Workflow
The application of “Xiao Mo” is not just about replacing human hands with robotic arms; it is redefining the operation mode of the production line.
- Autonomous Detection and Real-time Reporting: “Xiao Mo” can not only complete the connection process but also autonomously detect the wiring harness connection status and report any abnormalities immediately, effectively reducing the defect rate. This is equivalent to adding an “intelligent quality inspector” to the production line, capable of promptly identifying problems and issuing warnings to prevent defective products from flowing into the next process.
- Inspection mode and efficient utilization: During breaks in operation, “Xiao Mo” will proactively switch to inspection mode to make full use of the time to patrol and inspect the production line and promptly identify potential problems.
- Improved efficiency and guaranteed consistency: Faced with the complex task of continuous production of multiple battery models, “Xiao Mo” can handle up to three times the workload of a human in a single day, while demonstrating outstanding performance in terms of operational consistency and stability. This translates to a significant increase in production efficiency, while reducing quality fluctuations caused by human factors.
The emergence of “Xiao Mo” has made the production line more intelligent, automated and efficient, bringing significant economic and social benefits to CATL.
Technical Background and Developer
The success of “Xiao Mo” is rooted in the deep accumulation of research and development company Qianxun Intelligent in the field of embodied intelligence. Founded in February 2024 by Han Fengtao, former CTO of Luoshi Robotics, Qianxun Intelligent is committed to creating leading general-purpose humanoid robots and next-generation embodied large models.
Qianxun Intelligent has developed rapidly, completing multiple rounds of large-scale financing in 2025. In July 2025, the company officially released its first commercial-grade humanoid robot, “Mozi”. This robot, relying on its self-developed full-body motion control system and VLA embodied model, achieves direct mapping from natural language commands to fine movements, placing it at the forefront of the industry in terms of speed, accuracy, and force control safety.
Qianxun Intelligence’s success is inseparable from its strong technical team and deep understanding of the field of embodied intelligence. They combined advanced AI technology with robotics to create a humanoid robot that can truly understand human intentions and perform complex tasks.
CATL’s Strategic Deployment
As one of the top 10 lithium-ion battery manufacturers in the world, the deployment of “Xiao Mo” is not an isolated attempt by CATL in the field of embodied intelligence, but rather the latest achievement of its systematic strategic layout. Since 2024, CATL has been actively investing in this cutting-edge field through its subsidiaries and affiliated investment platforms.
Its strategic path is clear:
- Capital investment: Investing in technology companies like Qianxun Intelligent through capital ties to support their research and development and innovation.
- Supply chain cooperation: By deepening cooperation with supply chain partners, we will actively explore cooperation opportunities for incremental components for intelligent robots.
- Independent R&D: The Future Energy Research Institute, located in Shanghai and a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, has also collaborated with universities such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University to launch several joint research projects on intelligent robots.
CATL is building a smart manufacturing ecosystem centered on embodied intelligence, and is accelerating the application of embodied intelligence technology in the field of battery production by integrating resources from all parties.
Industry Impact and Future Outlook
The large-scale deployment of “Xiao Mo” provides a highly valuable model for the entire intelligent manufacturing and humanoid robot industry. Qianxun Intelligent stated that it expects to achieve mass commercial delivery in 2026. This success on CATL’s production line undoubtedly provides the strongest proof of the product’s practicality and reliability.
For CATL, the future will take the success of “Xiao Mo” as a starting point to comprehensively improve the automation and intelligence level of its PACK production line and continue to deepen the industrial synergy between intelligent manufacturing and green power. By promoting the application of embodied intelligent models in a wider range of scenarios, CATL is committed to extending its leading advantages in battery manufacturing to a deeper level of intelligent manufacturing.
The emergence of “Xiao Mo” is not only a technological innovation in the manufacturing sector, but also a bold exploration of the future factory model. It foreshadows a future where factories will be more intelligent, flexible, and human-centered, with robots becoming indispensable assistants to humans, working together to create a better future.
Summarize
The large-scale application of the humanoid robot “Xiao Mo” on CATL’s production line represents a significant breakthrough in embodied intelligence technology within the manufacturing sector. It not only solves the long-standing challenges of “multiple varieties, small batches, and high flexibility” in power battery production but also demonstrates the enormous potential of embodied intelligence technology in improving production efficiency, ensuring safety, and reducing costs. Explore the top 10 installed capacity of power battery manufacturers in the world.
The success of “Xiao Mo” is inseparable from Qianxun Intelligent’s deep accumulation in the field of embodied intelligence and CATL’s strategic layout for intelligent manufacturing. It signifies that embodied intelligence technology is no longer just a concept, but has truly entered the production site, bringing new opportunities for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.
In the future, with the continuous development of embodied intelligence technology, we have reason to believe that humanoid robots will play an important role in more fields, helping various industries achieve intelligent, automated, and efficient development. This manufacturing revolution initiated by “Xiao Mo” will profoundly impact our lives and future.
Read more: lithium battery module; battery vibration test
Willow
Willow is a materials engineer with a Master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering, specializing in lithium-ion battery materials and energy storage technologies.
Her work focuses on EV battery swapping solutions, battery innovation, and new energy industry trends, aiming to translate research insights into practical applications for sustainable transportation.
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