BYD's greeter robot ships to showrooms as the FCC closes the US import door

BYD has put a humanoid robot called Xiao Di on the floor of its Di Space experience centres in China, starting in Zhengzhou and continuing to Shenzhen and Shanghai ^[1]. The rollout came days after the US Federal Communications Commission moved to block new imports of foreign-made advanced robots, including humanoids, on national security grounds ^[3].

The machine itself is modest by demo-video standards. Details reported by Sina put it at 1.61 metres and 58 kilograms with 31 degrees of freedom, seven of them in the hands ^[2][4], which leaves 24 for everything else ^[18]. Startup Fortune reports support for six Chinese dialects and six foreign languages, plus facial recognition, gesture recognition and lip-reading ^[6]. The job description is narrow: greet visitors, explain vehicle models, answer questions ^[5]. BYD's stated scope is retail, not industrial or household work ^[8].

The deployment numbers are where the marketing meets the calendar. BYD's target is two or three robots in every store, with showroom deployment described as potentially possible within one or two years ^[7]. That is a pilot in three cities with an aspiration attached, not a fleet. What BYD does have is the estate: the source frames its existing showroom network as a large-scale environment for testing humanoids as customer-service assistants ^[17].

There is a commercial reason to try. BYD is into a fourth consecutive month of falling domestic car sales ^[13]. Reuters reported June global sales up 5.5 percent year over year to 403,472 vehicles while domestic sales fell 22 percent ^[14]. First-half sales were 1,808,511 new energy vehicles, down 15.72 percent, with overseas sales up 70.65 percent, according to Startup Fortune ^[15]. That decline implies roughly 338,000 fewer units than the same period a year earlier ^[19]. A robot that keeps buyers in the building for another ten minutes is a cheap thing to test against that.

The regulatory side is the part operators outside China should read twice. On July 28 the FCC added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices, including humanoid and quadruped robots, to its Covered List ^[9]. The measure applies to new models requiring FCC authorisation for import, marketing or sale in the US, while previously authorised devices can continue to be sold and used ^[10]. The commission cited risks from connected robots carrying cameras, sensors and network capabilities ^[11]. Xiao Di's specification, a networked greeter with facial recognition and cameras, is a close match for the described concern ^[6][11]. China criticised the decision as politicising trade and technology ^[12].

The result is a widening gap between deployability and purchasability. Xpeng plans to scale its Iron humanoid past 1,000 units a month by the end of 2026, put them in Chinese showrooms as sales assistants in the first quarter of 2027, and roll out to overseas stores later that year ^[16]. Any new model on that path into the US would need FCC authorisation that the Covered List addition now stands in front of ^[10][16].

Watch whether the two-to-three-per-store target produces a second wave of cities or stays a three-city display, whether Xiao Di is given tasks beyond greeting, and whether the grandfathering of previously authorised devices turns existing US robot inventory into a scarce asset ^[7][10].