Faraday Future launches nine robot products: the full spec breakdown, and YT Jia on why humanoids only get you halfway

New Faraday Future robots

The cheapest new Faraday Future humanoid robot starts under $10,000. The most expensive quadruped and humanoid models are in the $130,000 range.

The headline number is $9,990 — the entry price for a 95-centimeter humanoid aimed at classrooms, university labs and robot soccer. The more interesting number might be 24, because it's a direct rejection of the strategy almost every well-funded humanoid company has adopted: build one body, make it good, scale it.

Founder and global CEO YT Jia thinks that's roughly half a plan.

"I believe that human-like will cover more or less around 50% of the tasks, because the world is designed for human like us," Jia told me in an interview ahead of the launch. "But on the other hand, there's still 50% of the other tasks might be more efficient to have non human-like robot to perform."

That thesis, which FF brands "One Brain, Multi-Form, Multi-Capability," is the organizing logic behind everything the company announced, and it comes out of the car industry Jia spent a decade in.

"We're coming from automotive industry… the main purpose for the car is to move people from point A to point B," he said. "So with this one simple task, how many shape of car do we have? There's more than 10, the sedan, MPV, SUVs, sports, van, bus, truck." Then the extension: how many real-world tasks are there beyond moving a person from A to B? "Probably thousands of them, if not tens of thousands of them. So think of covering like 10,000 tasks, how many form do we need?"

And you can't build a separate stack for each body. "That's not possible," Jia said. "So one brain, taking care of different form, and different forms for different tasks."

What launched

The Futurist is positioned for universities, research institutions, embodied AI developers, enterprise reception and marketing, competitive robotics and industrial customers.

Master Mini targets K-12, university labs, youth developers, competition organizers and family education. 

The Aegis family runs from residential and campus patrol (Ultra-W) through warehouses and data centers (Mega) to energy, chemical, utilities, mining, emergency response and critical infrastructure (Hyper).

For price context, FF's existing FX Navi launched in June at $1,990. Elsewhere in the market, Unitree's R1 sells for $4,290 and the G1 starts around $13,500, AgiBot's X2 runs about $24,240, and Unitree's H1 has listed between $90,000 and $150,000. 

Figure AI, Agility Robotics and Tesla machines are not sold to general buyers at all.

The regulatory context that makes the price sheet interesting

Every Chinese comparison above now carries an asterisk.

On July 28, the FCC added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to its Covered List. The definition is broad: a ground-locomoting mobile device over 4.4 pounds, operated at a distance via commands or sensor data, with environmental sensors, network connectivity of at least 200 kbps, and software running autonomous navigation, perception or remote command. Connected vehicles, rail, aircraft, underwater vehicles, FDA-regulated medical devices and fixed industrial robots are excluded. Robot vacuums and lawn mowers are not.

FF told investors in August that the FCC decision represents "a critical structural opportunity." Its August partner-conference release put it more directly, describing FF as the first U.S. company to have delivered both humanoid and bionic robots and therefore well positioned as entry barriers rise.

The obvious question is how FF's own hardware clears that bar, given that Jia says the manufacturing is still offshore. Neither Friday's release nor our conversation addressed the equipment-authorization status of the nine new products.

Built in USA, phase by phase

Jia laid out the localization roadmap without much spin, which is refreshing.

"Right now we rely on offshore manufacturing for the hardware, but we'll make all the software, operating system, AI, skill, training, data, every software and data related activities onshore in the United States as a U.S. company," he said. "So that's the current stage that we are."

Phase two keeps software and data onshore and moves final assembly to the U.S., with a supply chain he described as "half US, half non US." Phase three targets more than half of component value sourced domestically and full U.S. manufacturing. "Probably we'll reach there in three to five years," Jia said. "We hope that we will reach the second phase in one year or so."

FF's August partner-conference roadmap is more specific than that: the robotics factory online by the end of 2026 and the first new device off the line in February 2027. "Made in USA" comes only in Q4 2028, and a pledge of no less than $5 billion invested in the U.S. over ten years with three to five new products launched and manufactured domestically each year. 

The first two devices selected for the program are the full-size humanoid Next Futurist and the quadruped Next Aegis.

On why it has to be phased, Jia was blunt.

"If you ask all the parts manufacturing in the United States as of today, you're not able to make robots, everyone will die," he said. "You know that's not possible, even forget about the cost. Even if like 10X the cost, we're not able to do it, because it's just certain supply chain is not available in the United States. But I really like this direction. We should be coming back to the United States as much as possible, as soon as possible, but realistically, needs to be a step approach."

The Skills marketplace

The commercial bet underneath the hardware is a developer platform with app-store economics.

"We open standard SDK APIs," Jia said. "We have a website that you can log in, register your username, and there will be standard developer tool package for you. And we're hosting conferences, we're hosting meetings to onboard developer on our platform and having them release developed skills applications for the robots."

Revenue split favors the developer. "Once you develop something, you can put it on our platform and other people can download it. And depending on your choice, you can do it for free, or you can do it with a cost. And if people are willing to pay for it, you will enjoy most of the economic benefit."

Jia argues the expensive robots are effectively developer kits. "Eighty thousand, ninety thousand is not a small money," he said. "But for developer, they purchase one, they develop tools, they develop skills, they develop software combined with this robot. They do lots of testing with that. That's money real well spent."

Every robot ships with a Skill package baked into the price — $1,000 on Master Mini, $3,000 on Aegis Ultra-W, $8,000 on Aegis Mega, $10,000 on the All-New Futurist Standard, $15,000 on Aegis Hyper. 

The three-tier commercial offering runs hardware, hardware plus Skills, or hardware plus a complete industry solution.

What the Skills actually do and don't do

Jia's answers were more useful than most vendor conversations.

I asked him if a developer builds a tote-moving Skill for one warehouse, and a buyer deploys it in an environment that varies from the original by 10% or 20%, does it transfer?

"As of this stage, no," he said. "Maybe long term, for sure, 100%. But as of this stage, no. It's just because the real-world task is super complicated."

Even carrying an object from A to B breaks down fast, he said: different shapes, different weights, different A's and B's. "The general capabilities we're not there yet, and I don't think that we will be there in the next one year or so."

What does work today, by his account, falls into three buckets. 

Conversation and companionship, where the LLM carries the load: "for a senior companion, emotional support, there's no problem. The robot can really have a really nice conversation with you, probably better than I maybe would be able to." Surveillance and patrol, which inherits from autonomous driving: "it has a LiDAR, and it will do the automatic mapping together with the camera… it can do the automatic surveillance."

And entertainment, specifically dance and performance, which Jia notes crowds love at concerts and festivals.

Manipulation is not on that list. 

Nor are hands, which FF doesn't build.

"As of this stage, we do not do the self R&D for the hand," Jia said. "Right now we're partnering with the top tier suppliers for those hardware solutions." He expects that to change: "probably that very soon we're going to design our own hand and our own robot," driven mainly by industrial requirements.

On industrial manipulation more broadly, his timeline is long. "We won't be there like at least three to five years from now. So then what do we do, right? We're not trying to target that for now. We're trying simple task that can replace human being as of now."

For enterprise deployments, that means bespoke work. "If there's a warehouse provider want to have like 10 robots from us, we're going to discuss with that person… what kind of robot do you want? What kind of the task? … Does it make sense or not? After knowing that… we would develop specific solutions for it." 

Essentially: one customer at a time, for now. His analogy is Tesla's path from closed-loop parking lots to freeways to open roads: "that's a move step by step."

Industry solutions, channels and rentals

FF also launched the first four offerings under its Industry Productivity Solutions core: K-12 education, university research, security, and inspection.

The K-12 solution uses Master Mini as the central platform with Navi for introductory learning, Aegis for quadruped motion development, and Master and All-New Futurist for advanced research, wrapped in a Blockly-to-Python-to-ROS curriculum. FF already has partnerships with Lynwood Unified and El Segundo Unified in California covering roughly 22 schools, and says 11 more education partnerships across 10 states are in development.

The security solution pairs Aegis platforms with thermal cameras, 360-degree cameras and LiDAR for 3D mapping, autonomous patrol, AI-assisted event detection and remote operation. The inspection solution adds PTZ cameras, gas sensors, 3D scanning and manipulators for energy, utilities, manufacturing, mining and tunnels, with a stated roadmap toward physical interaction: opening doors, operating switches, collecting samples.

Distribution runs through what FF calls a "6+1" network of direct sales, its website, third-party e-commerce, FF PAR authorized partners, the MCube co-creation network, and ecosystem channels, plus RoboShare, a rental and asset-sharing platform FF describes as "Uber + Turo" for robots. RoboShare has completed a $33,000 one-year rental order, which FF says converted an education customer from five Navi units into a firm order for 23 robots.

The numbers that temper all of this

Like most humanoid and quadruped robot companies, it's early days.

Faraday Future reported $1.35 million in revenue for the first half of 2026, a record for the company, against an $81.3 million net loss. Cumulative robot shipments reached 394 units through July, with 158 in August, a monthly record. The 2026 target is 2,000 units. Total liabilities stood at $278 million at the end of June, which the company headlined as a reduction of more than $100 million year over year, with management targeting under $100 million within three to four quarters.

That's challenging. But Jia says growth is coming.

"We just launched this business for half year," he said. "We delivered more than 500. We're actually number one."

Sources: FF 919 launch announcement · FCC Covered List: foreign-produced robotic devices · K&L Gates: five things to know · IEEE Spectrum on the Covered List · FF Q2 2026 results · FX Navi launch at $1,990