Apptronik enters Mercedes: Apollo goes to work in Berlin and Kecskemét.

Two months after Figure's BMW deal, Apptronik answered with Mercedes-Benz. The Austin-based company announced a commercial agreement to pilot Apollo — its human-safe humanoid built on custom linear actuators — inside Mercedes manufacturing environments in Berlin and Kecskemét, Hungary.

The framing from both sides was deliberately practical: Apollo would first take on low-value, physically demanding logistics work — inspecting components, moving parts kitting containers, delivering assembly-line materials to human colleagues. Nothing that required end-to-end dexterity. Everything that removed a chunk of repetitive strain from a certified line worker.

It was the second confirmed OEM humanoid pilot in eight weeks. It was also the moment the phrase 'general-purpose humanoid' started meaning something different to procurement teams: not the flashy demo videos, but the swappable-battery, 24/7-duty-cycle, human-safe architecture Apollo was built around.