Apptronik Apollo

What it's for

Seventy-one degrees of freedom, 25 kg of payload and a battery you can swap without stopping production - that, in short, is Apollo, the humanoid from Texas-based Apptronik. The robot stands 173 cm tall and runs about 4 hours on one pack; the pack can be swapped in moments instead of waiting hours for a recharge. That is a practical feature that makes a difference in a plant running three shifts.

Car manufacturing. Apptronik has a commercial agreement with Mercedes-Benz for an Apollo pilot in production plants; we covered the details in “Apptronik Apollo in Mercedes-Benz Factories”. The tasks are internal logistics at the line: delivering components to assembly stations and moving crates and bins. This kind of work is also described under “Factories and manufacturing”.

Distribution centers. GXO Logistics is evaluating Apollo at one of its distribution centers - an evaluation stage, not a mass rollout. For Polish logistics readers this is a signal of what will be coming to market, so warehouses and “Humanoid Robots in Factories 2026” are the natural further reading.

Electronics plants. Jabil, a manufacturing company where the robot is meant to handle material movement in the plant and warehouse, is also named among the partners.

Modularity. This is the differentiator: Apollo can be mounted stationary, on a mobile platform, or as a fully bipedal walking robot. A customer can start with a stationary or wheeled version and add walking later. Unlike single-variant designs, it can be fitted to a hall where the floor and station layout are far from textbook.

Today, though, each of these uses is a pilot. The manufacturer publishes no price and runs no sales or tests in Poland.

Who it's for

Who it is for. Large industrial and logistics groups with a pilot budget, an integration team and the appetite to be early adopters. Car makers where a humanoid is to work alongside existing processes in internal transport. R&D departments that want to see whether modularity (stationary, wheeled, bipedal) makes it easier to enter humanoids step by step.

Who it is not for. Small and mid-sized companies looking for a ready-made product with a price and a warranty - Apollo reaches customers only through B2B pilots. Polish businesses, because the manufacturer runs neither sales nor pilots here. Anyone expecting long work without breaks - four hours per pack requires organized battery swaps.

A practical tip: a high company valuation is not proof of a mature product. In February 2026 Apptronik raised USD 520 million at a USD 5 billion valuation, which shows investor confidence but not mass deployments. We explain how to read such news in “Humanoid Robot Market Forecasts”, and how to count the total cost in “Humanoid Robot TCO: How to Calculate Total Cost”.

Deployments

Pilots and evaluations are confirmed: Mercedes-Benz (production plants), GXO Logistics (a distribution center, evaluation) and Jabil (plant and warehouse operations). The manufacturer does not disclose unit numbers or the scale of deployments. In Poland Apptronik runs neither sales nor pilots. Chinese research designs are on the market, for example Unitree G1, as is the American Agility Digit under a subscription model, though not in Poland. Context on industrial deployments: “Humanoid Robots in Factories 2026” and “Apptronik Apollo in Mercedes-Benz Factories”.

• Figure 03 - the rival from the Apollo vs. Figure 03 comparison: Mercedes and GXO on one side, BMW on the other. Figure has the bigger buzz; Apptronik has modularity and a swappable battery.
• Agility Digit - logistics-specialized and currently the best commercially documented, but with a smaller payload (15.9 kg).
• Agility Digit 5 - Digit's successor, 22.7 kg payload, early access from 2027; close to Apollo on specs, but with a single use case.
• Atlas - the electric Atlas, aimed at industry; greater motion ambition, an equally closed program.
• Unitree H2 - research hardware available on the market, if you want to start with experiments rather than a pilot.

For a complete overview of the category: “Humanoid robots”.

Apptronik is a University of Texas at Austin spin-off founded in 2016. Apollo was unveiled in August 2023. The company signed a commercial agreement with Mercedes-Benz for a pilot in production plants, then began an evaluation at a GXO Logistics distribution center; Jabil is also named among the partners. In February 2026 Apptronik raised USD 520 million at a USD 5 billion valuation, and in September 2026 it announced a further USD 520 million in an extension of its Series A-X round: total Series A funding exceeds USD 935 million, and total capital raised is approaching one billion dollars. The capital is earmarked for scaling Apollo production.