China's Coreless Motor Suppliers: The Heart of the Dexterous Hand

A dexterous hand is only as good as the motors inside it. Coreless motors — ironless-rotor motors that are tiny, fast and backlash-free — drive every finger. Tesla's Optimus uses about 12 of them per hand for 11 degrees of freedom, and a full humanoid carries 32-40 coreless motors in its two hands. For decades this niche belonged to Switzerland's Maxon, Germany's FAULHABER and Japan's Orbray. China is now the challenger.

Why coreless motors are so hard

The difficulty is the winding. With no iron core, the copper coil must be wound in precise patterns — straight, diagonal or saddle-wound — by machines few companies have mastered. A low rotor inertia means fast response; no cogging means smooth force control. That combination is exactly what a robot finger needs, and exactly what is hard to mass-produce at 10mm scale.

The Chinese lineup

MOONS' — the clear leader

Shanghai-based MOONS' is China's absolute coreless-motor champion, holding roughly 35% domestic share (28.4% in one research estimate). Its deep ties run through UBTECH and CloudMinds — 127,000 and 89,000 sets delivered in 2025 respectively, ~63% of its humanoid business — with custom dual-module redundant control. More importantly, it is a core supplier for Tesla's Optimus dexterous hand, with Vietnam capacity built for a North American customer widely believed to be Tesla.

Zhaowei and Leadshine

Zhaowei (兆威机电) is the A-share "full-stack" dexterous-hand player, with a deep moat in micro transmission. Its 17/20-DOF finger drives are in volume, and its ZWHAND B20 (20 active DOF) has entered sampling with Xiaomi and AgiBot. Leadshine (雷赛智能) pairs coreless motors with its own DH-series hands (21 DOF) that have won orders from multiple humanoid makers.

The price-breakers

Alongside them, Topband, Kegu and Weiguang have pushed unit prices down to around RMB 1,500 (~$210) — a 67% cut — by scaling production. That is the same pattern seen across Chinese robotics components: an overseas monopoly turned into a Chinese commodity, which is precisely what makes the million-unit humanoid era possible.

What to watch

• Tesla's hand — if Optimus scales its hand, MOONS' is the best-positioned Chinese supplier.
• Integration — encoder + driver + coreless in one 10mm module (see Micronix-style designs) is the next battleground.
• Hand makers — Inspire, Linkerbot and PaXini buy these motors; see our dexterous-hand supplier map.