Key Notes
- Most F.02 robots were retired while a few remain at Figure headquarters.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested melting the machines and joined the film.
- Figure says simulated training prepared robots for autonomous jumps into molten steel.
Figure has melted down most of its retired F.02 humanoid robots at a foundry in Imatra, Finland, with Arnold Schwarzenegger joining a send-off reminiscent of Terminator 2. The company says a few units remain at headquarters as its growing F.03 fleet takes over.
In its September 30 decommissioning account, Figure says Schwarzenegger suggested melting the machines and then agreed to participate. Its film shows robots jumping into molten steel, a maneuver the company describes as autonomous.
F.02 Decommission pic.twitter.com/NAJsRpplR8
— Figure (@Figure_robot) September 30, 2026
Why Figure Retired the Fleet
Figure says disassembling the custom actuators and other proprietary hardware would occupy technical staff and delay F.04 development. The foundry operation offered a way to dispose of that hardware. It describes F.02 as the platform behind its early BMW, household and logistics work.
Retiring a hardware generation has implications beyond the spectacle. Engineers must decide whether maintaining older equipment still supports current development, and how to preserve knowledge from machines that are no longer worth keeping operational.
Training a Final Autonomous Jump
According to Figure, the team practiced with airbags in San Jose and trained an AI model in simulation using stunt performers’ movements as a reference. The robots then executed the jump at the Finnish foundry. Figure says the recovered metal is being made into limited-edition commemorative objects.
The operation demonstrates a narrowly defined behavior in the setting shown. It does not establish that the robots can safely perform arbitrary foundry jobs, nor does it provide an independent measure of industrial reliability. The film documents a retirement exercise, with autonomy claims supplied by the company.
F.03 Moves Into the Spotlight
RobotsBeat previously covered F.03 ladder climbing, another company demonstration involving coordinated whole-body movement. That report examined the difference between completing a filmed maneuver and repeating it under the changing conditions of an industrial workplace.
Figure’s broader development effort also includes the Nscale compute partnership for training its Helix models. The retirement film closes a chapter in the hardware program; productive deployments of the successor machines will provide the more consequential evidence of progress.
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