Figure AI is retiring its second-generation humanoid robot, the F.02, by dropping them into a 75-ton electric arc furnace in Finland. The video shows the disposal event following Arnold Schwarzenegger’s suggestion to melt the machines. The company replaced this fleet with the F.03 model last October. Disposing of custom actuators and proprietary hardware without delaying the next launch required a rapid solution.
Figure F.02 units jump into a molten steel furnace
The clip opens with text explaining that Figure F.02 marked several company firsts, including its BMW deployment and the birth of the Helix model. The description states that maintaining the aging fleet no longer makes sense as the F.03 production expands. The video shows engineers training the robots to jump by placing large mattresses at the San Francisco headquarters. They practiced the movements from a second-floor landing in simulations before traveling to Finland.
At the foundry, the footage captures the humanoid units stepping toward the edge of a 75-ton furnace equipped with three graphite electrodes. The robots execute programmed jumps into the molten steel. The clip shows the machines continuing their movements despite failing cameras and disrupted electronics from extreme heat. The process required six melting cycles lasting approximately twenty minutes each, finishing within twenty-four hours. Nothing in the upload states whether the footage was recorded during a single continuous take or assembled from multiple jumps.
Figure replaces its aging F.02 fleet with the F.03
This disposal marks a visible shift from Figure’s second-generation hardware to its third generation. The F.02 introduced in August 2024 featured a custom battery pack in the robot torso and fourth-generation hands with sixteen degrees of freedom. The company retired the fleet after introducing the F.03 in October 2025, which cut mass by nine percent and added tactile fingertips and palm cameras for the Helix vision-language-action model. The F.03 also swapped hard machined exteriors for soft washable textiles designed for home use. Figure stated that disassembling each F.02 manually would take technical staff enough time to delay the F.04 launch. The decision to melt the units instead protected proprietary hardware while accelerating the transition.
What the short runtime leaves out about the disposal
The upload does not state how many F.02 units jumped into the furnace. The company notes that a few remain stored at headquarters, but the exact fleet size is absent. Nothing in the video confirms whether the robots operated autonomously during the jump or received remote commands from a control room. The clip runs for three minutes and forty-one seconds, but it does not state playback speed.
Stated and missing details from the upload
- Stated: The disposal occurred at a foundry in Imatra, Finland, using a 75-ton electric arc furnace.
- Not stated: The exact number of F.02 robots destroyed in the melt.
- Stated: Engineers trained the units to jump on mattresses at the San Francisco headquarters before the trip.
- Not stated: Whether the robots were teleoperated during the jump sequence.
- Stated: Six melting cycles lasted approximately twenty minutes each over a twenty-four-hour period.
Why melting a commercial fleet matters for scaling
Figure AI competes with Tesla, Agility Robotics, Boston Dynamics, and Apptronik in the general-purpose humanoid market. Scaling production to thousands of units requires retiring older hardware without creating logistical bottlenecks. If the company can melt entire fleets in a single day, it could simplify reverse logistics for future models. The next step is watching whether F.03 deployments at BMW and Catalyst Brands maintain similar operational lifespans.
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Source: F.02 Decomission by Figure , published 2026-09-30. This article was written automatically from the video above and has not been independently verified.