Figure retires F.02 humanoids by jumping them into a 75-ton furnace

Figure AI said on September 30, 2026 that it has retired its F.02 humanoid fleet, and disposed of the robots by training them to jump into a 75-ton electric arc furnace at a foundry in Imatra, Finland. The team had 24 hours and six melts to finish the job. Metal from the melt will be machined into a small series of commemorative artifacts.

Why it matters: Figure’s stated reason is fleet economics. “As our F.03 fleet grows, maintaining the F.02 fleet no longer makes sense,” the company wrote. Taking the robots apart some other way would have tied up technical staff, and “it would delay the launch of F.04.”

How did Figure decommission F.02?

Figure says no foundry it contacted in the US or Mexico would let it jump a robot with lithium-ion batteries into its equipment. The team set up large airbags and taught robots to jump off a second floor, then trained a new AI model in simulation, using stunt artists’ movements as reference, to land accurately in a bucket. Each melt left roughly 20 minutes before the molten steel crusted over, Interesting Engineering reported. Figure says the robots ran their AI policies despite heat and electromagnetic interference. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Figure says “told us to melt them,” took part in the filmed event; Gizmodo reports he appears in the video saying “Hasta la vista, Figure 02.”

Figure’s summary of F.02’s record lists the first deployment at BMW, the launch of its Helix model (now at version 2.5), its first household chores and its first logistics deployment. At BMW’s Spartanburg plant, F.02 ran 10-hour shifts for 11 months, logging 1,250+ hours and contributing to more than 30,000 X3s, Figure reported in November 2025 (our deployment tracker).

What does retiring a humanoid generation say about fleet economics?

F.02 was unveiled in August 2024. Figure 03 followed on October 9, 2025, and BMW announced Figure 03 for logistics work at Spartanburg on June 25, 2026. That gives F.02 a working life of about two years from launch, ending less than a year after its successor appeared. For anyone modelling humanoid leases, that is the depreciation schedule on record: this hardware is turning over on something closer to a phone cycle than a machine-tool cycle.

Figure’s reasoning also applies to customers. Running two generations side by side costs engineering time, which is the cost Figure chose not to pay. And destroying the robots to protect proprietary hardware means no second-hand market for this generation. Residual value, the number every equipment lease depends on, was zero for F.02 by design.