Does a robot cost $2 or $35 an hour? A multitrillion-dollar market depends on how the answer

Do robots actually save enterprises money? Depending on whom you ask, a robot costs $2 an hour, according to a Roland Berger study earlier this year; $10 to $12 , according to JPMorgan or more than $35, according to reports on early industrial deployments.

These figures appear to contradict one another.

In fact, they expose the real question facing the physical AI industry: How much useful work can a robot reliably perform? Enterprises do not need robots that are inexpensive in theory.

They need dependable labor in the messy conditions of a factory, warehouse, or distribution center.

That distinction will determine whether physical AI remains an expensive collection of pilots or becomes a labor market measured in trillions of dollars.

The economics depend on utilization A robot’s hourly cost is relatively simple to calculate.

Divide its purchase or lease cost by the productive hours it works over its life, then add power, maintenance, software, integration, and supervision.

The variable that changes everything is productive time.

In Roland Berger’s equation, the $2 an hour covers energy, software, network, and scheduled maintenance.

It excludes the purchase or the lease of the machine.

This equates to the running cost at volume, not the cost of a deployment.

When placed against the average U.S. warehouse human wages, that $2 an hour only wins if the robots are running 60-70% of the time.

Consider a $90,000 industrial robot amortized over five years.

At 2,000 working hours per year, the hardware contributes about $9 to each operating hour.