Unitree Will Sell You a Personal Mecha Robot for $650,000

Unitree might be looking to make its fortune in humanoid robotics, but it’s also playing around with niche projects, like this $650,000 humanoid mecha robot you can sit in and drive yourself. The GD01—the “world’s first production-ready manned mecha”—is on sale now, and could be used for construction purposes, a unique way to get the kids to school, or just making all your friends extremely jealous.
The mecha robot’s look and feel are a little bootstrapped. While its red paint job is shiny, the roll cage around the racing seat doesn’t look particularly comfortable or protective. It’s also covered in slapped-on rubber padding, presumably to help protect the user from injuring themselves on the robot’s frame.
Although the GD01 is marketed as a piloted system, its promotional video features a dummy whenever it’s in motion, suggesting that some functions are performed without user input, or at least without requiring consistent pilot control. That sort of diminishes the need for a cockpit, but then half the fun of this thing appears to be stomping about and feeling like you’re in an anime movie.
In an intriguing part of the promo video showcasing the feature that allows Unitree to claim this mecha can “transform,” we see the GD01 bending over backwards and switching into a quadpedal mode, using all four limbs for locomotion. This seems to improve movement speed and increase stability, but it would leave the occupant lying on their back, staring up at the sky, so it’s not clear how useful it would be for piloted travel.
The eventual use case for such a robot appears quite limited for now. Although we see it knocking over a breeze block wall, Unitree claims it’s specifically “a civilian vehicle,” but since it wouldn’t be road safe, nor likely to be that capable of traversing difficult terrain, it’s not clear what you’d use it for.
Whatever buyers buy it for, though, Unitree is very clear that it doesn’t want anyone starting scraps in these things. “Please everyone be sure to use the robot in a Friendly and Safe manner,” the promo video description reads. Don’t give this thing a giant sword, whatever you do.
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