BMW Spartanburg and Figure 02

The completed industrial humanoid pilot. The rare deployment where the full documented arc, from announcement through retirement, is publicly available. From January 2024 partnership announcement through November 2025 official retirement, the BMW Spartanburg deployment of two Figure 02 humanoid robots produced one of the cleanest published case studies in commercial humanoid evaluation that exists today.

The short version

The BMW Spartanburg / Figure 02 deployment is the canonical "completed humanoid industrial pilot" story. The pilot delivered eleven months of live assembly-line operation under defined performance criteria, produced a complete operational dataset, and ended on Figure's announcement that Figure 02 retirement was beginning in favor of Figure 03. As of May 2026, no Figure robots are currently at the BMW Spartanburg facility, and BMW has not announced a timetable for return; BMW continues to work with Figure on data capture and training capabilities for Figure 02 robots.

The operation

Two Figure 02 humanoid robots, manufactured by California-based Figure AI, deployed on the body-shop assembly line at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina. Their primary task was a classic pick-and-place workflow: lifting sheet-metal parts from racks or bins and placing them on welding fixtures with a 5-millimeter placement tolerance. Once placed, a traditional six-axis industrial welding robot performed the welding and fed parts into the main production line.

The robots ran ten-hour shifts, Monday through Friday. Across the eleven-month pilot:

• ~1,250 hours of total runtime
• 30,000+ BMW X3 vehicles supported
• 90,000+ sheet-metal parts loaded
• ~200 miles walked inside the facility, roughly 1.2 million steps
• 84-second cycle time per pick-and-place (about 37 seconds was the lift itself)
• Placement accuracy above 99 percent

The robots ran on Figure 02 hardware (Figure AI's second-generation humanoid platform) with the company's autonomy stack. The deployment was structured as a technical evaluation pilot rather than an open-ended commercial operation; the evaluation criteria were defined in advance and the operation concluded on schedule.

The timeline

• January 2024: BMW and Figure AI announce the partnership for humanoid robots at Spartanburg.
• August 2024: First trial run. Figure 02 spends several weeks on the sheet-metal task, and BMW talks publicly about what it takes to fit multi-purpose robots into an existing line.
• ~6 months after Figure 02 was ready: Robots arrive at Spartanburg and on-site testing begins.
• ~10 months after Figure 02 was ready: Full deployment on the active line, every working day. This was the operational core of the pilot.
• November 19-25, 2025: Figure announces the end of the eleven-month run, publishes the operating data, and says Figure 02 is retiring in favor of Figure 03. CEO Brett Adcock shares photos of the worn, scuffed robots as "real-world deployment" evidence.
• May 13, 2026: BMW confirms no Figure robots are at Spartanburg and there is no timeline to bring them back. The two companies keep working together on data capture and training.

What gets verified

The deployment is unusually well-documented: both BMW (a public company) and Figure AI (in its retirement press cycle) published detailed numbers that line up. The verified record:

• Operator: BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, South Carolina (builds the X3, X4, X5, X6, X7)
• Manufacturer: Figure AI, Sunnyvale, California
• Robot: Figure 02, bipedal humanoid, second-generation Figure platform
• Robots deployed: 2
• Task: loading sheet-metal parts into welding fixtures
• Cycle time: 84 seconds (37s lift, the rest transit and placement)
• Placement accuracy: above 99 percent
• Runtime: ~1,250 hours over eleven months
• Output: 30,000+ X3 vehicles supported, 90,000+ parts handled
• Movement: ~200 miles walked, ~1.2 million steps
• Span: technical evaluation in 2024-2025, full line operation through 2025, ended November 2025 on Figure 02's retirement

What this deployment proves

Three things, each of which were live questions when the BMW Spartanburg pilot began.

That humanoid robots can perform precise repetitive industrial tasks at production cadence. The 84-second cycle time and 99+ percent placement accuracy across 90,000+ parts is operating-grade evidence that humanoids can hit production-line cadence, not just demonstration cadence. The pilot answered the "but can they actually keep up with the line" question.

That eleven-month sustained operation in an industrial environment is achievable on current-generation humanoid hardware. The robots returned visibly scratched and worn but operationally complete. The pilot answered the "but will they fall apart in real use" question.

That integration with existing automation (six-axis welding robots, production-IT infrastructure, shop-floor logistics) is the critical enabler. BMW's published lessons emphasize that the technical pilot required involvement of production IT, occupational safety, production process management, and shop-floor logistics from the earliest test phases. The pilot answered the "what does it actually take to integrate" question with a process-level answer that subsequent humanoid pilots are now following.

What this deployment did NOT prove

Worth being explicit about: an eleven-month two-robot pilot is not a sustained commercial humanoid deployment in the same sense as Agility Robotics' multi-year RaaS at GXO Flowery Branch. The pilot ended on schedule with the robots retired rather than the operation expanded. As of May 2026, no Figure robots are operating at BMW Spartanburg, and BMW has separately initiated humanoid programs with AEON robots from Hexagon Robotics at Plant Leipzig in Germany rather than continuing with Figure at Spartanburg. The Leipzig pilot is targeted for full pilot phase starting summer 2026.

The BMW Spartanburg / Figure 02 pilot is therefore more accurately described as the canonical completed industrial humanoid evaluation rather than as the canonical sustained commercial humanoid deployment. The verified-record distinction matters for understanding what the deployment did and did not establish.

What to watch

Two things matter most for what BMW Spartanburg becomes in the next eighteen months.

First, whether Figure 03 returns to BMW Spartanburg or elsewhere in the BMW network. Figure has stated that lessons from Figure 02 now live in Figure 03; whether BMW deploys Figure 03 in production at Spartanburg, at Plant Leipzig alongside AEON, or at another BMW site is the question that determines whether the Figure-BMW relationship was a one-pilot test or a multi-generation manufacturer-customer partnership.

Second, whether BMW's Plant Leipzig pilot with AEON (Hexagon Robotics) and BMW's Center of Competence for Physical AI in Production produces a different evaluation outcome than the Spartanburg pilot. AEON uses wheeled mobility rather than bipedal walking; the Leipzig pilot focuses on high-voltage battery assembly. If AEON outperforms Figure 02 on BMW's production-criteria scoreboard, the BMW signal to the broader humanoid industry shifts.

The verified record is below. Numbers reflect BMW Group press releases, Figure AI public disclosures, and primary-source coverage as of late May 2026.