1X's Norway Manufacturing Edge

Norwegian manufacturing gives 1X a real shot at winning on cost before US humanoid makers reach automotive style scale. 1X is building actuators, assembly, and testing in Moss next to engineering, which cuts iteration time and lets the company improve robot design and factory process together. That matters because humanoid margins are set by hundreds of mechanical choices long before volume is high enough to spread overhead cleanly.

• 1X is not outsourcing the hard parts. It is building actuator manufacturing and robot assembly in Norway, and has kept manufacturing there even after moving its global headquarters to Palo Alto in July 2025. That makes Norway the physical base for cost down work, not just a legacy site.
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• The main US comparables are building in much higher cost US footprints. Agility’s RoboFab in Salem, Oregon is designed for up to 10,000 robots per year, and Figure’s first major factory deployment has been tied to BMW in South Carolina. Those companies may gain from domestic proximity, but they also inherit US labor and facility costs earlier in the scaling curve.
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• Cost matters because hardware is getting cheaper and smarter at the low end. Chinese players like Unitree are already pushing humanoid pricing down, with entry models priced below $16,000 in one case and about $5,500 in another. That raises the bar for every Western builder to squeeze cost out of actuators, assembly, and service.
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As deployments grow, the winners are likely to be the companies that combine usable robot data loops with the lowest repeatable build cost. 1X is set up for that race. Norway gives it a tighter path to design for manufacture now, and a cleaner base to expand into Europe and then the US as humanoid production moves from pilots to real fleets.