What is the approximate cost to manufacture an advanced humanoid robot? What are its most expensive components?

This question is like asking "How much does a car cost?" The answer is complex, ranging from economy cars costing tens of thousands to supercars costing tens of millions. Humanoid robots are similar, with an enormous price difference.

We can look at it in several tiers:

Exorbitantly Priced Research Prototypes: For example, Boston Dynamics' Atlas, which you often see online doing parkour and backflips. These robots are not commercial products; they are pure research platforms. Cost is no object for them, using top-tier technology and materials, hand-built and debugged by elite engineering teams over vast amounts of time. If you were to truly calculate the cost of such a robot, it could easily reach millions or even tens of millions of US dollars (which is tens of millions of RMB). They are the "F1 race cars" of the robotics world, used to explore the limits of technology, and are not intended for mass production at all.
Cutting-Edge Models "Geared for Commercialization": Such as Tesla's Optimus or Figure's Figure 01. The goal for these robots is future large-scale production, to replace humans in certain jobs. Currently, they are still in the prototype and early iteration stages, and their cost remains very high. Based on industry estimates and the hardware they use, the current single-unit manufacturing cost could be between 100,000 and 200,000 US dollars (approximately 700,000 to 1.5 million RMB). This price only covers material and manufacturing costs, not the astronomical R&D investment behind them.
Future Target: Mass-Produced Machines: This is the direction all companies are striving for. Elon Musk once said he hopes that once Optimus is mass-produced, its price could drop below 20,000 US dollars, which is less than 200,000 RMB, making it even cheaper than a regular car. Achieving this goal requires significant technological maturity and large-scale production to commoditize all expensive components.

So, what are the most expensive parts?

If we're only talking about hardware, the most expensive part is almost undoubtedly the robot's "joints" and "muscles" – in other words, the actuators.

You can think of it this way:

Not ordinary motors: These are not the buzzing motors you find in a home fan. Humanoid robot joints require generating immense power (torque) in a very small space, while also responding extremely quickly and controlling with exceptional precision, achieving millimeter-level movements. This is like demanding the strength of a sumo wrestler and the precise control of a ballet dancer, all while fitting into a space the size of a soda can.
Extremely complex technology: A high-performance joint actuator is a highly integrated module that combines a high-performance motor, a precision reducer, a torque sensor, an encoder (for position sensing), and a drive controller. Every small component within it represents high-precision, cutting-edge technology. In particular, the "precision reducer" (e.g., harmonic drive) has long been a technological barrier in robotics, being both expensive and difficult to manufacture.
High quantity, cumulative cost: An advanced humanoid robot has over 40 degrees of freedom (i.e., more than 40 movable joints) throughout its body. This means it has dozens of these expensive actuators. Assuming a high-performance joint actuator costs 10,000-20,000 RMB, the total cost of just these joints could easily reach hundreds of thousands of RMB, directly accounting for half or even more of the robot's total hardware cost.

Besides the most expensive "joints," there are a few other particularly costly areas:

"Brain" and "Soul" (Computing Unit and AI Software): Robots need powerful computing hardware (like NVIDIA's high-performance chips) to process various information in real-time and execute complex algorithms. But even more valuable than the hardware is the underlying software and AI. Enabling a robot to perceive the world like a human, make decisions, and coordinate its entire body's movements involves years of R&D, data collection, and algorithm training, making this intangible R&D investment astronomical.
"Senses" and "Skin" (Sensors): To perceive the world, robots are covered with various sensors. For example, LiDAR and depth cameras in the head, torque sensors (to perceive how much force it's applying), and tactile sensors on the body. These high-precision sensors are not cheap on their own, and the full suite of equipment also adds up to a significant expense.

To summarize:

The cost of an advanced humanoid robot ranges from hundreds of thousands (early mass production) to tens of millions (research prototypes) of RMB.
The most expensive hardware component is the [high-performance actuators] that serve as its "joints and muscles."
If R&D is included, the most expensive investment is actually the [AI algorithms and software] that give it intelligence.

Whether the price of humanoid robots can drop to become as widespread as cars largely depends on whether these core components, especially the actuators, can achieve large-scale, low-cost production.