Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

Back in December 2020, Hyundai purchased an 80% controlling interest in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank for $880 million, part of a transaction that valued the robotics company at $1.1 billion. That agreement included a put option allowing SoftBank to sell its remaining stake to Hyundai at a later date.

SoftBank has now exercised that option.

I don't understand why they would implement humanoid robots instead of purpose-built robots. The human form is not the most optimal way to do most tasks, especially as it relates to manufacturing. Robots don't need to look like humans, they need to be useful. Seems like putting in an awful lot of extra unnecessary work to end up with a worse result.

I don't think this is solely tied to car manufacturing automation. Even though Hyundai Motor Group is acquiring them, I would imagine they'd be well-positioned to commercialize general-purpose robotics and not just for car manufacturing, if Tesla is anything to go by.

I do think this might be tied to South Korea's demographics, by 2040 the working-age population is projected to decline 25% from 2020 and keep declining almost linearly until leveling out around 17M around 2065, a 50% drop total in < 50 years. I would think HMG / Hyundai sees a huge business opportunity or this might be a national-level political priority but I don't know the specifics.

Wait, haven’t they already owned them for years? Edit: right, they’re just buying the remaining 9%.

Hyundai bumped their ownership up to 100%, and took the opportunity to reset expectations about when Atlas would be working in Hyundai factories.

While Atlas is the best humanoid robot so far, it still isn't useful in a car factory that's fully equipped with the latest factory robots that are strong enough to juggle car engines and are bolted to the floor.

Everyone knows the killer app for humanoid robots is building the Mars colony amirte?

I still think dumping BD was one of the biggest mistakes of Sundar's career. And that's saying something.

It’s so weird to use an AI generated image for this article when there are so many images of Atlas out there.

If only they could make an engine or transmission that doesn't blow up at 80,000 miles.

So this appears to mean that Hyundai is effectively taking BD's humanoids "off the market" (B2C/B2B markets). And Softbank wants to take a different humanoids stake in OpenAI's plans.

Hyundai could be the first owner that can actually turn BD's robotics in real product

Just a note for the thread Hyundai Motor Group makes cars and a lot of other heavy industry things - trains, defense, plant. Rolling robotics fully into their motor group makes complete sense.

`buys` sounds like they have just purchased BD, should be `takes full control` or something similar.

BD always seemed more like an R&D company to me or even a university lab. Doesn’t seem like a good fit for a car company.

I’m pretty surprised to see no mention of Agility in the conversation about other humanoid companies

Boston Dynamics gets passed around again

Title really should clarify: Hyundai takes full control of Boston Dynamics

Rest is previously reported stuff.

Related from earlier in the year:

Hyundai Introduces Its Next-Gen Atlas Robot at CES 2026 [video]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46520508

And old discussions when the intial buy happened:

2020: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25363981

2021: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27588047

BD always felt like they had some awkward demos but never really revolutionized anything. Now they seem far behind Chinese companies. What happened?

nice

This is a bit disappointing, isn't it? Boston Dynamics had the coolest robots and everybody was marveling how they would take over the world eventually. Turns out the market isn't gigantic and the use cases are limited, at least for now.

However, let's hope they will keep on doing cool stuff under their new owner.