{"id":"90c61ecd-2b8e-4670-8833-982bdeb2ff15","slug":"figure-02-steel-door-gash-allegation-2025","kind":"property_damage","headline":"Figure 02 alleged to have gashed a steel door in a malfunction (whistleblower lawsuit)","summary":"A wrongful-termination complaint filed Nov 21 2025 by former Figure principal safety engineer Robert Gruendel alleges that a Figure 02 (F.02) malfunctioned and carved a roughly quarter-inch-deep gash into a steel appliance door, and that internal impact testing produced forces more than twice a human-skull-fracture threshold, with a person standing nearby. VERIFIED-VS-CLAIMED: the lawsuit's existence and filed allegations are verified by tier-1 outlets (CNBC), but the malfunction itself is an UNPROVEN ALLEGATION in active litigation; Figure denies the claims and says Gruendel was terminated for performance. Recorded as a litigation-sourced allegation, not established fact. Cap-flag: incident date not disclosed (the Nov 21 2025 anchor is the lawsuit filing date; safety-testing referenced ~Jul-Sep 2025).","occurredAt":"2025-11-21T12:00:00.000Z","reviewStatus":"reviewed","modelId":"f5599108-6c06-4af4-a669-378b87860daf","deploymentId":null,"companyId":null,"aliases":[],"collisionRisk":"none","reviewNote":null,"severity":"moderate","rootCauseCategory":"undetermined","rootCauseDetail":"Alleged uncommanded/erratic motion damaging a steel door; specific fault not publicly established. Allegation in active litigation; disputed by Figure. Structural-metal damage implies significant force; no injury (near-miss).","affectedUnitsCount":1,"affectedUnitsBasis":"unknown","remediationStatus":"outstanding","regulatoryAction":"none","regulatoryBody":null,"createdAt":"2026-06-04T19:47:29.827Z","updatedAt":"2026-06-04T19:47:29.827Z","model":{"id":"f5599108-6c06-4af4-a669-378b87860daf","companyId":"7107d624-dbc3-4d73-9103-1138ebf6f754","modelName":"Figure 02","slug":"figure-02","description":"Figure AI's second-generation general-purpose humanoid and the predecessor to Figure 03. Figure 02 ran the company's flagship production deployment at BMW's Spartanburg plant (since ended) before being succeeded by the higher-dexterity Figure 03. Built for industrial and manufacturing tasks.","formFactor":"humanoid","maturityStage":"commercial","lifecycleState":"superseded","supersededByModelId":"cab354ed-300c-4fa5-a4a9-f2c66b0a3a0e","specs":{},"manufacturerSerial":null,"reviewStatus":"reviewed","sources":[{"url":"https://www.figure.ai/news/production-at-bmw","label":"Figure AI — F.02 contributed to production of 30,000 cars at BMW; F.02 retirement begins","title":"Figure AI — F.02 contributed to production of 30,000 cars at BMW; F.02 retirement begins","mediaType":"article","sourceName":"Figure AI","publishedAt":"2025-11-19"},{"url":"https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2025/11/25/humanoid-robots-complete-11-month-project-at-bmw-plant/","label":"Repairer Driven News — Figure 02 completes 11-month BMW project, retirement begins","title":"Repairer Driven News — Figure 02 completes 11-month BMW project, retirement begins","mediaType":"article","sourceName":"Repairer Driven News","publishedAt":"2025-11-25"},{"url":"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/figure-unveils-figure-02-its-second-generation-humanoid-setting-new-standards-in-ai-and-robotics-302214889.html","title":"Figure unveils Figure 02, its second-generation humanoid (Aug 6, 2024)","sourceName":"Figure (PR Newswire)"},{"url":"https://www.therobotreport.com/figure-02-humanoid-robot-is-ready-to-get-to-work/","title":"Figure 02 humanoid is ready to get to work (Aug 2024)","sourceName":"The Robot Report"},{"url":"https://newatlas.com/robotics/figure-02-humanoid-robot-launch/","title":"Figure 02 (F.02) launch: specs and workplace/home aim (Aug 2024)","sourceName":"New Atlas"},{"url":"https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/figure-humanoid-robot-autonomous/","title":"Figure 02 next-gen conversational humanoid with 3x AI compute (dual NVIDIA RTX) (2024)","sourceName":"NVIDIA"},{"url":"https://www.figure.ai/news/helix","title":"Helix: a Vision-Language-Action model for generalist humanoid control (Feb 2025)","sourceName":"Figure (official)"},{"url":"https://newatlas.com/robotics/helix-vla-figure-02-robot/","title":"Figure's Helix VLA: humanoids do tasks they were not trained for (Feb 2025)","sourceName":"New Atlas"},{"url":"https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0455864EN/bmw-group-to-deploy-humanoid-robots-in-production-in-germany-for-the-first-time?language=en","title":"BMW Group: first humanoid pilot deployment successfully completed at Plant Spartanburg (Figure 02)","sourceName":"BMW Group (official)"},{"url":"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/figure-raises-675m-at-2-6b-valuation-and-signs-collaboration-agreement-with-openai-302074897.html","title":"Figure raises $675M Series B at $2.6B valuation; OpenAI collaboration agreement (Feb 29, 2024)","sourceName":"Figure (PR Newswire)"}],"aliases":[],"collisionRisk":"low","reviewNote":null,"manufacturerTermForTeleop":null,"createdAt":"2026-05-26T02:16:30.202Z","updatedAt":"2026-05-31T03:34:30.139Z"},"deployment":null,"company":null,"derived":{"status":"active"},"sources":[{"id":"3840bfe9-f7ea-4af8-8eae-21083c57992e","incidentId":"90c61ecd-2b8e-4670-8833-982bdeb2ff15","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/21/figure-ai-sued.html","label":"CNBC","publishedAt":null,"notes":null,"title":null,"sourceName":null,"mediaType":"article","videoId":null,"channel":null,"durationSec":null,"timestampSec":null,"createdAt":"2026-06-04T19:47:29.827Z","updatedAt":"2026-06-04T19:47:29.827Z"},{"id":"3cd6c37e-27b5-430d-beb9-9c470d330824","incidentId":"90c61ecd-2b8e-4670-8833-982bdeb2ff15","url":"https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/whistleblower-fired-warning-robot-crush-skull","label":"Futurism","publishedAt":null,"notes":null,"title":null,"sourceName":null,"mediaType":"article","videoId":null,"channel":null,"durationSec":null,"timestampSec":null,"createdAt":"2026-06-04T19:47:29.827Z","updatedAt":"2026-06-04T19:47:29.827Z"}],"responses":[],"statusEvents":[],"jsonLd":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://registry.deploy.report/incidents/figure-02-steel-door-gash-allegation-2025","url":"https://registry.deploy.report/incidents/figure-02-steel-door-gash-allegation-2025","headline":"Figure 02 alleged to have gashed a steel door in a malfunction (whistleblower lawsuit)","description":"A wrongful-termination complaint filed Nov 21 2025 by former Figure principal safety engineer Robert Gruendel alleges that a Figure 02 (F.02) malfunctioned and carved a roughly quarter-inch-deep gash into a steel appliance door, and that internal impact testing produced forces more than twice a human-skull-fracture threshold, with a person standing nearby. VERIFIED-VS-CLAIMED: the lawsuit's existence and filed allegations are verified by tier-1 outlets (CNBC), but the malfunction itself is an UNPROVEN ALLEGATION in active litigation; Figure denies the claims and says Gruendel was terminated for performance. Recorded as a litigation-sourced allegation, not established fact. Cap-flag: incident date not disclosed (the Nov 21 2025 anchor is the lawsuit filing date; safety-testing referenced ~Jul-Sep 2025).","identifier":"90c61ecd-2b8e-4670-8833-982bdeb2ff15","datePublished":"2025-11-21T12:00:00.000Z","articleSection":"property damage","publisher":{"@id":"https://deploy.report/#organization"},"author":{"@id":"https://deploy.report/#organization"}},"framework_metadata":{"framework_schema_version":"0.1.0","verification_status":"verified","maturity_stage":null,"lifecycle_state":null,"architectural_position":{"cohort":null,"sub_cohorts":[]},"within_cohort_verified_vs_claimed_pair":null,"cap_flags":[],"verification_depth":{"sources_count":2,"primary_source_types":["secondary-established-publication"]}}}