Humanoid robots head to car factories: what Hyundai's Atlas plan and the Ulsan strike reveal

Hyundai Motor Group wants more than 25,000 Atlas humanoid robots across its Hyundai and Kia plants, according to The Korea Herald. The first Atlas units are due at Hyundai's Metaplant America, an EV factory outside Savannah, Georgia, in 2028. The company has not said when other sites will get them.

That plan is already running into labor trouble. Unionized workers at Hyundai's Ulsan complex in South Korea began leaving day and night shifts two hours early from July 13 to July 15. They planned four-hour strikes from July 20 to 22 after 15 rounds of negotiations failed, The Korea Times reported. The Wall Street Journal called it "the car industry's first factory stoppage addressing humanoid robots."

The Hyundai Motor union represents more than 39,000 South Korean workers. Its demands, reported by the WSJ, include converting production workers' hourly pay into a fixed salary, in case automation cuts their hours, and raising the retirement age from 60 to 65. Bonuses are on the table too.

What Atlas actually is

Atlas is built by Boston Dynamics, the US robotics company that is about to become a wholly owned Hyundai subsidiary. The current version is a two-legged machine standing more than 6 feet tall that can lift more than 100 pounds and was unveiled at the start of this year. At CES in January 2026, Google DeepMind and Boston Dynamics said they would test Gemini-powered Atlas robots at Hyundai auto factories in the coming months, according to WIRED.

Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics, told WIRED that "the real value going forward is for our robots to be contextually aware of their environment and able to use their hands to manipulate any object," and that manufacturing environments like Hyundai factories are a good place to start. He also said guaranteeing human safety will be necessary for humanoids to take off. "Even the little ones can be dangerous," he said.

The money argument comes from securities analysts. Each Atlas costs an estimated $130,000 but may pay for itself in about two years, Samsung Securities analyst Esther Yim said in a Bloomberg interview, as cited by Ars Technica. James Hong of Macquarie Securities Korea suggested that if the cost falls to $100,000, the robot's operating cost could drop below the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 and undercut a typical auto worker's salary.

Georgia is the test case

Metaplant America is already the most heavily automated auto factory in the United States. IEEE Spectrum counted more than 850 robots there unloading parts, stamping steel, assembling frames and fitting doors, plus 300 automated guided vehicles. Boston Dynamics' four-legged Spot is used for "exterior quality inspection" in the weld shop. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter visiting in July 2026 watched the "robotic dogs probe their sensor-embedded noses to sniff out defects."

Atlas will start with sorting and organizing parts at Metaplant in 2028. Jerald Roach, a general assembly executive at the plant, told the AJC the humanoids won't threaten the human workforce. Human hands, with their sense of feel, are needed for soft parts such as hoses, wires, carpets and trim panels, he argued.

Hyundai has promised 8,100 full-time human workers at Metaplant by 2031 under its Georgia economic development deal, which came with an incentive package worth an estimated $2.1 billion. The AJC found the plant already employed more than 3,800 workers by the end of 2025. US workers there are not unionized, though the United Auto Workers, which represents about 400,000 autoworkers across the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, has been trying to organize them.

Hyundai is not alone. Tesla is developing Optimus for its own EV plants, and BMW has run pilot tests with Figure AI robots in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Ars Technica reported. Chinese automakers including BYD are also testing humanoids.

The wider context is an old one. More than 1 million robots were already in automotive factories worldwide by 2021, a third of all industrial robots, according to the International Federation of Robotics. The US had deployed 38,000 industrial robots as of 2025, with 13,500 of them in automotive. Humanoids differ from those machines in one respect: they are pitched as general-purpose, and that promise is what workers are striking over.