Humanoid Robots Enter Auto Assembly Lines: Figure and BMW Deploy Human-Robot Collaborative Workstations

On January 19, 2028, Figure AI announced the formal deployment of 16 Figure 02 humanoid robots at BMW's factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. This marks the first time humanoid robots have performed real-time collaboration with human workers on an automaker's production line.

Figure 02 stands 1.7 meters tall, weighs 60 kilograms, and features 42 degrees of freedom across its full-body joints. At the BMW factory, the robots primarily handle interior panel installation, wiring harness fastening, and quality inspection. Each robot is equipped with Figure's proprietary vision-language-action (VLA) model, which can learn new tasks by observing human workers.

Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock stated at the launch: "Figure 02 isn't replacing workers — it's taking on repetitive, high-precision tasks that workers don't want to do. In our testing, human-robot collaborative workstations achieved 23% higher output than pure manual stations."

BMW production director Milan Nedeljković expressed satisfaction with the collaboration: "The advantage of humanoid robots is that they can adapt to work environments designed for humans without requiring production line modifications." BMW plans to expand Figure 02 deployment to 50 units by end of 2028.

Worker rights organizations remain cautious. The United Auto Workers (UAW) issued a statement demanding BMW guarantee that humanoid robot deployment won't lead to layoffs, calling for safety standards for human-robot collaboration.

From a technical perspective, Figure 02's deployment at BMW marks an important milestone. Humanoid robots had previously been tested mainly in laboratory and warehouse environments; auto assembly lines demand far higher precision, speed, and safety. Figure AI reports Figure 02's task success rate on the production line is 94.7%, with human intervention still needed for the remaining 5.3% of exceptions.