Schaeffler forms the humanoid’s hardest part — 25% off the gearbox, mass production in 2027

Schaeffler is bringing formed strain wave gearboxes to market for humanoid robots, replacing the precision machining that the industry currently uses with a forming process that produces key components in seconds rather than minutes. The company says the method cuts key component manufacturing cost by more than 25% and material consumption by more than 75%.

Validation testing is complete. Mass production starts in 2027, beginning in Germany and rolling out successively to other regions.

Why this part is the constraint

Strain wave gearboxes sit inside actuators, and actuators make up around half the total cost of manufacturing a humanoid. The gearbox transmits motion at high torque through a high reduction ratio in a very compact space, with the accuracy and stiffness a robot joint requires. Nothing else does that job in that volume.

The established manufacturing method is precision machining, in which the gear geometry is cut by removing material. Schaeffler’s own framing of the problem is blunt: that process is time-consuming, capital-intensive, and “will be a major bottleneck in the scaling of humanoid robots in coming years.” A supplier does not usually describe its own market’s incumbent process that way unless it is about to sell the alternative.

What forming changes

Instead of cutting the geometry, the forming process presses the component into shape with high pressing forces. Schaeffler says the formed gearboxes achieve torques and efficiencies comparable to conventionally manufactured components, with high dimensional accuracy, lower material consumption and improved process stability.

The credibility here is not the robotics claim — it is the automotive record behind it. Schaeffler has been manufacturing strain wave gearboxes by forming for the automotive sector for years and says it has supplied more than 2 million formed units to all major automotive markets over the last decade. This is a transfer of an existing high-volume process into a new category, not a new process.

David Kehr, president of humanoid robotics at Schaeffler, said the company is deploying humanoids along its entire global value chain and therefore has first-hand knowledge of the requirements, calling the formed gearbox “another example of how we are readying key robot components for industrial high-volume mass manufacturing.”

Why it matters

Cost curves in this category have mostly been asserted. This is a dated, quantified step on one: a named part, a named percentage, a completed validation programme and a production year. Whether 25% off the gearbox moves a humanoid’s bill of materials meaningfully depends on how much of the actuator cost the gearbox represents, which Schaeffler did not break out — but it is the first component in the stack with an announced high-volume manufacturing route.

It also consolidates an unusual position. Schaeffler is already an investor in and deployment customer of the UK’s Humanoid, which raised a $152 million Series A in July with Schaeffler on the round and a commercial agreement signed in May. The company now sits on three sides of the same category at once: supplier of the critical component, buyer of the finished robot, and shareholder in a maker. Few component suppliers have that view of a market this early, and it is worth watching whether the gearbox terms differ for portfolio companies.