Figure 02 at BMW Spartanburg Plant

The world's first deployment of humanoid robots at a BMW plant, and the first publicly documented production-scale humanoid deployment in automotive manufacturing. Two Figure 02 robots worked in the body shop at BMW Manufacturing's Plant Spartanburg (South Carolina), running 10-hour shifts Monday through Friday.

The task: sheet-metal pick-and-place. The robots lifted sheet-metal parts from bins and racks and placed them onto welding fixtures to a 5-millimeter tolerance, after which traditional six-axis robotic arms performed the welding. The work is repetitive, physically demanding, and exacting in both speed and precision.

Key results (reported by Figure AI and BMW): an 11-month deployment totaling roughly 1,250 operating hours; more than 90,000 parts loaded; contribution to the production of over 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles; approximately 1.2 million steps taken (around 200 miles walked inside the facility); placement accuracy above 99%; and an 84-second cycle time (37 seconds for the load).

Timeline: announced January 2024; a weeks-long trial ran in August 2024; robots were on-site within about six months; full active-line deployment was reached by month 10. The pilot was completed and Figure 02 was retired in November 2025, with the units returning to Figure HQ as part of a fleet-wide F.02 retirement. Reliability learnings — especially in the forearm and wrist electronics and thermal management — were carried into the Figure 03 redesign. Figure operates on a Robots-as-a-Service model (approximately $1,000 per robot per month). Status: ended (successful pilot completion, not a failure).