Toyota to Deploy 400,000 Robots, Spending $6.42 Billion a Year

Toyota plans to deploy 400,000 robots across its factories, starting with annual investments of $6.42 billion from 2028 to upgrade plants with a robotic workforce, Nikkei Asia reports.

The automaker wants 150,000 of those robots in its own automotive plants and another 250,000 at group company facilities that produce components and materials. The scale of the program makes Toyota one of the most aggressive industrial automation efforts announced by any major manufacturer.

The rollout has already started. Toyota has deployed ELEY humanoid robots on some assembly lines, where they learn tasks directly from human workers. The robots move on wheels, and employees teach them precise hand movements by wearing "jigs" modeled on the humanoids' fingers — a training method that transfers human dexterity to the machines.

A Toyota executive said the robotic push is not meant to directly replace humans, according to the executive's comments reported alongside the Nikkei Asia disclosure. That claim will face scrutiny: 400,000 robots is a figure comparable to the workforce of a large global manufacturer, and the debate over whether such deployments augment or displace labor is central to how regulators, unions and rival automakers read the move.

The stakes extend beyond one company. Automakers worldwide are racing to automate factories as labor costs rise and humanoid robotics matures, and Toyota's commitment of more than $6 billion a year signals that industrial humanoids are moving from research demos to capital budgets. How Toyota's human workers — now literally training their robotic counterparts — fare as the deployment scales toward 2028 will be a test case for the industry's "robots alongside humans, not instead of humans" pitch.