Japanese automaker Toyota Motor plans to invest heavily in the mass deployment of humanoid robots at its manufacturing facilities. The program is set to launch in 2028; starting that year, the company will allocate 1 trillion yen (approximately 6,4 billion USD) annually to the initiative.

The plan calls for equipping 60 plants worldwide with robots—a total of 400,000 units. Of these, 150,000 will operate directly at Toyota facilities, while the remaining 250,000 will be deployed at the plants of supplier companies.

The robots are being developed in-house by the group and have been named ELEY—short for "Embodied Learning Robot for Enhanced Yield." The robot weighs approximately 50 kg and comes in two height variants: 939 mm and 1619 mm. The term "humanoid" is applied to ELEY loosely: the robots lack legs but possess two manipulators resembling arms.

Toyota is developing the artificial intelligence system for its robots in-house through the Toyota Research Institute (TRI). The institute is led by Dr. Gill Pratt, who previously headed robotics development at DARPA—the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.