Key points
- A 2027 Boston Dynamics listing "won't be easy"
- The robot maker lost 1.76 trillion won in five years
- Hyundai shares have halved since June 1
- Atlas reaches the Georgia plant in 2028
Hyundai Motor (005380) faces a longer wait for a Boston Dynamics listing. A senior Hyundai Motor Group executive told Reuters that a 2027 initial public offering for the robot maker "won't be easy," as Atlas has yet to be deployed at scale and the business remains unprofitable.
Its shares closed at 369,500 won ($272) in Seoul on Tuesday. The stock has now lost about half its value since the start of June.
Edaily (이데일리) carried the comment on September 15. The executive was not named, and said the company has to watch the conditions and the situation first.
Boston Dynamics still does not make money. Its net loss last year was 528.4 billion won ($389M). Over the five years from 2021 its losses add up to 1.7558 trillion won ($1.29B), Edaily reported.
Hyundai's own production timetable remains years away. Atlas goes into factories in 2028, starting with the group's Metaplant America in the US state of Georgia, and Kia's plant in the same state follows in the second half of 2029, Sidae Ilbo (시대일보) reported on September 15. Hyundai also plans to run a robot factory in the United States from 2028 that can build 30,000 robots a year.
The group is looking at its other plants too. Petr Michnik, who runs the administration division at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech, said in a recent interview that the Nosovice plant is "in discussions with Boston Dynamics and headquarters" about bringing Atlas in, Sidae Ilbo reported. The interview gave no date for a trial or for a place on the production line.
Why the stock has fallen so far
Hyundai closed at 750,000 won ($552) on June 1, which was its highest close of the year. Tuesday's price is about 51 percent below that by our arithmetic. Robot hopes had carried the stock up, and those same hopes are what has drained out of it, Chosun Biz (조선비즈) reported on September 15.
Lee Sang-heon, an analyst at iM Securities (iM증권), told Chosun Biz that rising interest rates are hard on a business built this way. "In a period of rising interest rates, the longer it takes to get the money back and the harder it is to produce cash right away, the more uncertainty a growth industry faces and the bigger the discount on its share price," Lee said. "The stalling of the fundamentals in the core car business, together with a thinner story about robot growth in the second half, is the main reason behind the fall in the share price."
Lee also said the listing plan itself is not the thing to worry about. Korean investors usually complain when a company lists a valuable unit at home, because the parent gets marked down for it. Boston Dynamics would list overseas instead. "For an overseas listing such as in the United States, the effect of the double listing problem is not large," Lee said. What matters for the share price is when Atlas reaches mass production and what the company turns out to be worth when it lists.
The spending comes first. Kim Sung-rae, an analyst at Hanwha Investment Securities (한화투자증권), said most humanoid companies are aiming for trial production next year and full production in 2028. Two or three years of heavy spending on prototypes, testing and production lines cannot be avoided, Kim told Chosun Biz. Kim puts one Atlas at about $450,000 and said proving that it works could cost five to ten times what the earlier testing did.
Hyundai is not the only Korean company whose share price has been set by robot hopes this year. Robotis (108490) has moved on the same theme from the parts side. Hyundai's timetable for its cars looks similar, with its Atria driver assistance software not due until 2029.
Industrial humanoid revenue remains small even at Unitree, which reported that only 9.01% of its humanoid revenue in the first nine months of last year came from industrial use. The figures were disclosed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Sidae Ilbo reported, and most of the rest came from research and education.
The quotes are translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at 1,359.80 won to the dollar, the Naver Finance rate on September 15, 2026.
