Kuka's CEO has plans for robot domination in China and your garage

Beijing

GERMAN industrial giant Kuka is the world's largest producer of robots used to make cars, with its signature orange crane-like bots a fixture in automated car factories across the globe.

So why is chairman and chief executive Till Reuter worried? The reason is simple enough: Growth in robots for all industries other than automotive is up more than 10 per cent; that compares to just 3-5 per cent for the car industry, he said. Kuka's car business has fallen from 80 per cent of robot revenues, when he took over the company in 2009, to around 50 per cent today, he noted.

Now, the 120-year-old company - which in January became just under 95 per cent owned by China's Midea, the world's largest applianc…