Figure AI's third-generation humanoid robot, Figure 03, has been deployed at BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina manufacturing plant, where it is successfully performing 18 different assembly line tasks alongside human workers.
Deployment Scope
The deployment represents the first large-scale use of general-purpose humanoid robots in automotive manufacturing, with 42 Figure 03 units operating across three production lines.
- Tasks include part picking, insertion, quality inspection, and material transport
- Robots operate two shifts (16 hours) with 30-minute charging breaks
- Error rate of 0.3% — comparable to experienced human workers on the same tasks
- Each unit can learn a new task from demonstration in under 4 hours
Economic Analysis
BMW reports that each Figure 03 unit costs approximately $75,000 per year to operate including maintenance and energy, compared to $65,000 in fully loaded labor costs for a single-shift human worker. The economic advantage comes from the robots' ability to work two shifts with consistent quality, effectively halving the per-unit labor cost.
