Nov 12, 2025 3 min read Daily Rundown

🤖 The Autopsy Show

Plus: Russia’s First Humanoid, Fieldwork Goes Robotic

Good Morning, Roboticists!

Welcome to The Autopsy Show — where machines meet mortality and the boundary between curiosity and control blurs.

HUMANOID

Xpeng’s Humanoid Proves It’s All Circuits, No Soul

📌 What’s happening: Xpeng’s CEO He Xiaopeng, long branded as “China’s Musk,” staged a dramatic live demo by slicing open the leg of the company’s new humanoid robot, IRON, to prove there was no actor inside. The robot moved with uncanny fluidity, triggering viral suspicion that it was a person in disguise. Xpeng claims IRON features bionic muscles, flexible synthetic skin, and solid-state batteries, calling it “the most human-like robot ever built.”

🧠 How this hits reality: Elon Musk built Optimus as part of a trillion-dollar plan to automate Tesla’s empire and justify his record compensation package. He Xiaopeng, on the other hand, seems to be building IRON mainly to win applause. There is no clear commercial roadmap, no defined use case, and no reason yet to believe this showpiece will move beyond the stage. For a company often accused of copying Tesla, this moment felt less like innovation and more like imitation with better theatrics.

🤖 Key takeaway: When Musk builds robots to fund Mars, and Xpeng builds them for claps, you can tell who’s chasing vision and who’s chasing validation.

HUMANOID

Russia’s First Humanoid Robot Takes a Fall Before Taking Off

📌 What’s happening: At a Moscow tech event, Russia’s first AI-powered humanoid, AIdol, made its debut—and promptly collapsed mid-walk. Developers from Idol Robotics rushed to cover the toppled robot while explaining the mishap as a “calibration issue.” The prototype, which was claimed to be built from 77 percent domestic components and powered by a 48-volt battery, was meant to symbolize Russia’s entry into embodied AI.

🧠 How this hits reality: Yes, it fell, but at least it exists. In a field where most “humanoids” are still stuck in pitch decks, Russia’s engineers have a working, full-body prototype. The stumble reveals just how far the country lags in actuation, balance, and control systems, yet also how rare it is to see actual hardware from outside the U.S.–China duopoly. AIdol didn’t fail from shame — it failed because physics still wins.

🤖 Key takeaway: Better to fall on stage than to live forever as a PowerPoint.

AGRICULTURE

New Holland Rolls Out R4 for Vineyards and Orchards

📌 What’s happening: At Germany’s Agritechnica 2025, CNH Industrial’s New Holland unit unveiled the R4 series — a new line of autonomous robots built specifically for vineyards, orchards, and other high-value specialty crops. Designed without a cab and managed entirely by app, the R4 performs labor-intensive, repetitive fieldwork such as mowing, tilling, and pesticide spraying using GPS, LiDAR, and vision guidance. The lineup includes two models: the compact, all-electric R4 Electric Power for narrow vineyards and the hybrid R4 Hybrid Power for larger fruit operations.

🧠 How this hits reality: The R4 isn’t a “concept tractor”; it’s the first mainstream push to bring full-stack autonomy into high-value specialty agriculture, a sector long trapped between labor scarcity and green mandates. By replacing hydraulics with electric drivetrains, New Holland is cutting maintenance, emissions, and soil compaction in one stroke. The hybrid model’s ability to switch between diesel-generator and full-electric mode also makes it practical for regions where charging infrastructure lags. More importantly, it keeps human expertise focused on crop quality rather than repetitive labor, a shift that could redefine how boutique vineyards and orchards operate.

🤖 Key takeaway: R4 turns sustainability from a marketing checkbox into a mechanical fact, clean, consistent, and fully automated.

QUICK HITS

Hong Kong’s Direct Drive unveiled D1, the world’s first modular robot that shifts between quadruped and biped modes to adapt across all terrains.
Bristol University team have created robotic trousers with soft artificial muscles that let astronauts move more freely during space missions.
Circus launched its subsidiary Circus Defence SE to expand into autonomous AI robotics and defense infrastructure across Europe.
Researchers at the University of Toronto are developing bio-inspired robotic skin to restore touch for prosthetics.
Surgical robotics firm Cornerstone Robotics raised about US$200M to accelerate commercialization of its Sentire system and global expansion.

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