Apptronik Apollo Robot

How much does an Apptronik Apollo cost?

There is no list price, no configurator, and no published rate card. As of 30 August 2026 you cannot get a number without talking to Apptronik's sales organisation about a pilot.

What exists is a statement from the CEO. In a CNBC interview published 11 February 2026, alongside the close of Apptronik's $520 million funding extension, Jeff Cardenas said he expects orders for $1 billion worth of robots starting in 2027, delivering Apollo in high volumes for roughly $80,000 a year — which he compared to the price of a luxury car.

Read that carefully, because the structure matters more than the number:

- It is **per year**, not per unit. An $80,000 annual figure over, say, a five-year service life is a $400,000 commitment, not an $80,000 purchase. - It is **at high volume**, which by the same interview means the 2027-and-later production ramp, not a 2026 pilot. - It is **a forward-looking statement by an executive**, not a signed price. Nothing about it is contractual.

It is still the most useful number available, and it is the one we now carry, because it is the company's current public position rather than a three-year-old aspiration. But anyone budgeting off it should treat it as the optimistic end of a range that has not yet been tested by a single arms-length transaction.

Whatever happened to the "$50,000 robot"?

It was a target, and it has quietly been replaced.

In August 2023, when Apollo was introduced, Cardenas talked about custom actuators keeping the cost down and about building a robot for less than the price of a car — a figure he put at $50,000. Forbes repeated the goal in August 2024. At that point Apollo had not been deployed with a paying customer, the bill of materials was a prototype bill of materials, and the number described where the company hoped to end up after volume manufacturing.

Three years on, the same executive is talking about roughly $80,000 a year. That is not a small revision. It is a different unit of measure, a different date, and a different order of magnitude in lifetime cost. It also tracks what has happened across the whole sector: nearly every humanoid maker that put out an early sub-$50k number has since either gone quiet on price or restructured the offer as a subscription, because a recurring fee hides the hardware cost and captures the software revenue at the same time.

Our previous entry presented "CEO target <$50k at scale" in the price field as if it were pricing guidance. It was not, and we have corrected it. If you see that figure elsewhere with a 2026 date attached, the date is decoration.

What are Apollo 2's specifications?

Mostly unpublished, and we are not going to invent them.

Apptronik's Apollo 2 product page, checked 30 August 2026, carries no height, no weight, no payload, no speed, no degrees-of-freedom count, and no runtime figure. What it does carry is capability language and a handful of design claims:

- Bipedal and wheeled base configurations on the same platform - Claimed 90%-plus energy efficiency in the actuation system - Swappable batteries supporting what the company calls 7x22 operation - An expressive LED mouth, plus coordinated lighting, speech and listening - A chest display showing robot status, battery level, charging state and task progress - Configurable safety zones with impact detection - Artemis, the coordination and control system, and Fleet Connect for fleet management

That is genuinely all of it. Several aggregator sites list Apollo 2 with the 2023 figures — 1.73 m, 72.6 kg, 25 kg payload, four-hour battery — and while those may well still be roughly right, nobody outside Apptronik can confirm that, and a robot that gained a wheeled variant and a redesigned head almost certainly did not keep every number intact.

Our position: the 2023 Apollo numbers are documented and we cite them as the 2023 Apollo numbers. Apollo 2's are undisclosed as of 30 August 2026. An empty cell is more useful to a buyer than a confident wrong one.

Legs, wheels and the safety standard nobody has written yet

Apollo 2 ships in two mobility configurations, and the reason is regulatory as much as mechanical.

Wheeled industrial mobile robots have an established safety-standards path. The machines have been in warehouses for years, the hazard analysis is understood, and a plant safety officer knows how to sign one off. Legged machines largely do not have that path. A humanoid that can fall over is a category the standards bodies are still working through, and "can this thing be allowed near people" is answered today by conservative site-specific risk assessment rather than by a certificate.

Apptronik describes its wheeled base as conforming with existing safety standards for industrial mobile robots. That single sentence removes the hardest question from a customer's deployment review, and it is why the wheeled variant will almost certainly reach revenue first, whatever the long-term argument about bipeds. Jeff Cardenas continues to make that long-term argument — legs go where infrastructure was built for humans, stairs included — and he is probably right about 2030. He is also shipping wheels in 2026, which tells you what customers are actually asking for.

What Apollo 2 has on the safety side, per Apptronik: configurable safety zones with impact detection, plus a deliberately legible interface — a chest display showing status, battery, charging state and task progress, an LED mouth, coordinated lighting and speech. That last group is not decoration. The main practical hazard around a mobile robot is a human misreading its intent, and a machine that broadcasts what it is about to do is easier to work beside.

What it does not have on the public record: a named certification, a third-party safety assessment, or a published incident record. That is true of every humanoid on the market, and it is a reason deployments stay small.

What is Robot Park, and why does Apptronik keep talking about it?

Robot Park is a nearly 90,000 sq ft (about 8,360 sq m) facility in Austin, Texas, announced on 30 June 2026 as an expansion of a site that had already been running for over a year. Inside it, Apollo robots perform logistics, manufacturing and retail tasks — some teleoperated, some autonomous — and the resulting data is used to train the models that are meant to run the commercial fleet.

The strategic point is that the bottleneck in humanoid robotics has moved. Building a machine that can stand up and carry a tote is now a solved-ish engineering problem for a well-funded team. Getting it to do a hundred different tasks reliably is a data problem, and real-world manipulation data is scarce, expensive and impossible to scrape. A 90,000 sq ft building full of robots doing repetitive warehouse work is, in effect, a data mine.

It also tells you something about where Apptronik is on the commercial curve. Companies that are selling robots talk about deployments and uptime. Companies that are still building the product talk about training infrastructure. Apptronik, right now, is doing the second thing, and is fairly candid about it — Apollo 3 is repeatedly described as the commercial product, in the future tense.

Did Google's Gemini Robotics 2 really run on Apollo?

Yes, and this is the single most substantive thing that happened to Apollo in 2026.

On 30 July 2026 Google DeepMind announced Gemini Robotics 2, and Apptronik's Apollo 2 was one of the two platforms it was demonstrated on (the other being a Franka Duo arm setup). The headline capability is whole-body control: a single policy driving legs, torso, arms and fingers together, so the robot can walk, crouch, reach and manipulate as one coordinated motion rather than as a navigation stack handing off to a manipulation stack. In the demonstration, Apollo 2 was given an instruction along the lines of putting a watering can into a specific bin on a bottom shelf, and it walked, retrieved, navigated and placed.

A few caveats that the coverage mostly skipped. Gemini Robotics ER 2, the embodied-reasoning model, is available through Google AI Studio and in private preview on Google's enterprise agent platform; the vision-language-action and on-device models went to early-access partners only. DeepMind's claim that the on-device model adapts to a new robot body in a few hours with under 200 examples is a research claim, measured on the tasks the researchers chose. And a demonstration is not a deployment: nothing in the announcement says Apollo 2 runs Gemini Robotics 2 on a customer site.

Still — being the humanoid Google picks up when it wants to show its newest robotics model is a real signal about who Apptronik is close to. Google has been an investor since the $350 million round in February 2025.

Where is Apollo actually working today?

Three named industrial relationships, plus the training facility.

**Mercedes-Benz.** The longest-running, from a pilot announced in March 2024. Coverage in June 2026 described Apollo working shifts at Mercedes-Benz rather than sitting in a lab, with the German carmaker's Berlin-Marienfelde campus named in reporting. Mercedes-Benz is also now an investor in Apptronik.

**GXO Logistics.** A proof-of-concept in warehouse logistics. GXO runs proofs of concept with several humanoid vendors at once, which is worth knowing before reading too much into any single one — it is a bake-off, not an exclusive.

**Jabil.** Both a customer and a manufacturing partner: Apollo units work in Jabil facilities, and Jabil is part of how Apptronik intends to build them at volume.

There is also a longer-horizon space thread. Apptronik's Apollo lineage traces back to NASA-connected work, and there was coverage in February 2026 about Apollo-type robots moving from factory work toward space applications. Treat that as roadmap, not deployment.

What you will not find, as of 30 August 2026: a customer who has bought Apollos, a published fleet count, or a disclosed uptime figure. Apptronik talks in partner names, not unit numbers.

Can you buy an Apollo 2 right now?

No. There is no purchase path for Apollo 2 — not for a business, and certainly not for an individual.

The route in is an enterprise pilot engagement negotiated directly with Apptronik. In practice that means a named contact at a company with a real warehouse or production line, a defined workflow, a site survey, and a commercial conversation that starts from Apptronik's side. There is no reseller channel, no distributor, no published lead time.

Apollo 3, when it arrives, is the unit intended to be sold. Cardenas' framing of $1 billion in orders starting in 2027 implies an order book opening at some point before that — but Apptronik has not announced a reservation program, a deposit, or a delivery queue. If you see a site offering to sell you an Apollo, it is either a reseller with no allocation or it is not selling you an Apollo.

One practical note for US buyers specifically: Apptronik is an Austin company and manufactures with a US partner, but a machine's regulatory position depends on how it is actually built and certified, not on where the head office is. Anyone planning a 2027 deployment should confirm the equipment-authorization status of the exact configuration they intend to import or operate, rather than assuming it from the company's nationality.

Does the July 2026 US import restriction affect Apollo?

No, and that is quietly one of the most valuable things about it right now.

On 28 July 2026 the FCC added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to its Covered List, acting on a national security determination issued the day before. The framing in most coverage was "the US bans Chinese humanoid robots", which is wrong twice over. The text is country-neutral: a device counts as domestic only if it is manufactured in the United States with more than 65% domestic component cost, rising to 75% for deliveries from 2029. German, Japanese, British and Canadian machines fail that test as readily as Chinese ones, and US final assembly of imported parts does not clear it. The mechanism is also narrower than a ban — a covered device cannot obtain new FCC equipment authorization, and without authorization it cannot lawfully be imported, marketed or sold. Devices authorized before 28 July 2026 keep selling and keep receiving security and firmware updates until at least 1 January 2029. Nothing is recalled and federal purchases sit outside the listing altogether.

Apollo is built in Austin, Texas by a US company with a US manufacturing partner in Jabil, so it sits outside the foreign-produced category. Pilots continue exactly as before, and a federal buyer faces no new hurdle at all.

The more interesting effect is on the competitive field. Overnight, a large slice of the cheap end of the humanoid market lost its route into the United States, and the machines that remain buyable there are mostly the expensive Western ones. That is worth something to Apptronik commercially — but it is worth nothing to a buyer's budget, because Apollo still has no price. And one caution for anyone planning a 2027 deployment: regulatory position follows how a specific configuration is built and certified, not the flag on the head office. Confirm the equipment-authorization status of the exact unit you intend to operate, rather than inferring it from the company's nationality.

What does an Apollo pilot actually involve?

Apptronik has not published a pilot process, a rate card or a standard scope, so anything precise you read about "the Apollo programme" is someone guessing. What can be reconstructed from the three named relationships — Mercedes-Benz from March 2024, GXO Logistics, and Jabil as both customer and manufacturing partner — is the shape of it rather than the terms.

Every humanoid pilot to date has followed roughly the same sequence. A workflow is chosen that is repetitive, low-dexterity and physically unpleasant: tote moves, machine tending, kitting, trailer work. The site is surveyed and usually mapped. Safety zones get defined, and staff working near the machine are trained on what it does when a person enters one. The robot then runs a narrow task, supervised, with data collected on cycle time and intervention rate. Nobody publishes the intervention rate. That is the number that decides whether a pilot becomes a purchase, and no humanoid vendor has disclosed one.

A few things follow from this that are worth knowing before you ask for a meeting. The engagement starts from Apptronik's side — there is no self-serve entry point, no reseller and no published lead time. The commercial construction is a negotiated agreement rather than an order. And Apptronik's own framing is that Apollo 2 is a pilot and data-collection platform: the company is buying your workflow data as much as you are buying its robot's labour, which is a reasonable trade but should be priced as one.

GXO in particular runs proofs of concept with several humanoid vendors simultaneously. Being named in a GXO release means you are in the bake-off, not that you won it.

How does Apollo compare to Digit and Figure on the things that matter?

On the only axis that separates humanoid vendors right now — is there a paying order book — Apollo sits behind Agility Robotics and roughly level with Figure.

Agility has publicly contracted orders for Digit v5 and a stated monthly price. Apptronik has partner logos, a training facility, and an executive's forward-looking cost estimate. That is a meaningful gap in commercial maturity, and it is the gap Apollo 3 is meant to close in 2027.

On capital and technical partnership, the picture reverses. Apptronik has raised about $935 million in a Series A that closed in February 2026, at a reported $5 billion valuation, with Google, Mercedes-Benz, B Capital, PEAK6, AT&T Ventures, John Deere and the Qatar Investment Authority on the cap table. Its model partner is Google DeepMind, and its robot is the one DeepMind demonstrates on. Very few humanoid companies have both that balance sheet and that model access.

On form factor, Apptronik has hedged in a way its rivals mostly have not: offering a wheeled base next to the biped is an admission that legs are a cost, a safety-certification problem and a reliability risk in a flat warehouse. Cardenas still argues the biped has the higher ceiling. He is also shipping wheels. Both things can be true, and honestly the wheeled variant is probably the one that gets to revenue first.

What would have to be true for Apollo 3 to hit $80,000 a year?

Four things, none of them guaranteed.

**Volume.** The number is explicitly an at-scale figure. Humanoid actuators, harmonic drives and force-torque sensing are expensive in the hundreds and merely costly in the tens of thousands. Apptronik has a manufacturing partner in Jabil and is talking about $1 billion in orders from 2027, which at $80,000 a robot-year implies something on the order of a few thousand robot-years of committed demand. That order book does not publicly exist yet.

**Autonomy that reduces headcount rather than adding it.** A robot that needs a supervising operator does not replace a $30-an-hour worker; it adds a machine to one. Gemini Robotics 2 is the bet here, and it is a good bet, but the demonstrated tasks are still short-horizon.

**Uptime.** An annual price only makes sense if the robot is available most of the year. Apptronik's 7x22 swappable-battery claim is the right ambition; there is no published field data behind it.

**Bill-of-materials reduction in Apollo 3.** Reporting from the June 2026 briefing said this is exactly what Apollo 3 targets. Reduced BOM cost is the whole reason it is a seperate generation rather than a revision.

If all four land, $80,000 a robot-year is competitive with a single shift of fully burdened warehouse labor and cheaper than two. If any one of them slips, the number moves. It has moved before.

Apptronik's timeline, 2016 to 2027

The chronology explains the company's odd shape — enormous funding, prestigious partners, and no product to sell.

**2016** — Apptronik is founded in Austin, spun out of the Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Texas, with a lineage running back through NASA-connected humanoid work. It spends its first several years building actuators and one-off machines for other people.

**23 August 2023** — Apollo is unveiled. This is the generation with published numbers: about 1.73 m, 72.6 kg, a 25 kg payload, roughly four hours per swappable battery. Around the same time the CEO talks about eventually building a robot for under $50,000 at scale.

**March 2024** — the Mercedes-Benz pilot is announced.

**February 2025** — a $350 million round, with Google participating.

**11 February 2026** — a $520 million extension closes the Series A at $935 million total, reported at a $5 billion valuation, with total capital raised approaching $1 billion. In the same interview Cardenas gives the figure that replaces the old one: roughly $80,000 per robot-year at high volume from 2027, and an expectation of $1 billion in orders starting that year.

**30 June 2026** — Apollo 2 is unveiled in bipedal and wheeled configurations, alongside the expanded Robot Park training facility of nearly 90,000 sq ft in Austin. Apollo 3 is named as the first true commercial product.

**30 July 2026** — Google DeepMind demonstrates Gemini Robotics 2 whole-body control on Apollo 2.

**2027** — the year everything is pointed at: Apollo 3, volume production, and the order book that has not yet been announced.

Ten years from founding to first commercial product would be unremarkable in aerospace and is becoming normal in humanoids. It is worth holding in mind when you read that a competitor will be shipping at scale next year.