Seoul, Jan 23 (IANS) The labour union of Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s leading automaker, said on Friday it will strongly oppose any deployment without prior consultation of physical artificial intelligence (AI) robots in automobile production.

“Not a single humanoid robot will be allowed on the production lines without a labor-management agreement,” the automaker’s 40,000-member union said on its website, reports Yonhap news agency.

The union said the company’s new humanoid robot Atlas, unveiled at CES 2026 in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, sent shockwaves through the auto industry and heightened concerns over job security at the company’s domestic plants.

“The company is apparently moving to introduce AI robots to reduce labor costs at production facilities,” the union said. “Any deployment without the union’s agreement will not be tolerated.”

Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai Motor, publicly demonstrated the life-sized Atlas humanoid robot, featuring two arms and two legs, for the first time at the CES technology showcase.

Hyundai Motor said it plans to build a robot foundry in the United States by 2028 to mass-produce 30,000 Atlas robots and introduce them in manufacturing operations.

Separately, the union also raised concerns about employment instability stemming from production shifts to overseas plants.

“Two domestic plants are already suffering shortages in production volumes as output is being transferred to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) in Georgia,” the union said.

The company’s plan to expand the Metaplant’s annual output from less than 100,000 vehicles currently to 500,000 units by 2028 clearly indicates an intention to shift a substantial portion of domestic production overseas, it added.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Group said its brands have won multiple honors across different vehicle segments at major automotive awards in Britain and the United States.

At the ‘2026 What Car?’ Awards, a major British automotive awards event, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. won a total of seven honors spanning their sport utility vehicle (SUV) and electric vehicle (EV) lineups, the South Korean automotive giant said in a release.

—IANS

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