Heavy & Off-Road
3 robots · scored byHVMX
Autonomous heavy plant and off-road machines — excavators, haul trucks, tractors and harvesters.
Autonomous Heavy Machinery in 2026: the market at a glance
This page lists 3 autonomous heavy machinery from 3 companies in 2 countries, each scored 0–100 on the Heavy Machine Metric (HVMX). USA builds the most, with 2, followed by Japan (1).
All of them are real products. Of the 3 tracked, 3 are shipping to customers (3 commercially available). The difference is scored: commercial readiness is a pillar of the HVMX, and a robot in a demo video does not earn it.
On autonomy, the level each has actually demonstrated rather than claimed: 3 task-autonomous. A robot is graded teleoperated when its public demonstrations are remotely driven, however they are marketed.
One of the 3 publishes a price; the rest do not, and no price is estimated on their behalf.
How this category is scored
The Heavy Machine Metric (HVMX), version
0.2.0. Pillars are weighted for what
actually matters to this class, and normalised against
heavy & off-road-specific reference scales.
Not applicable to this category: Manipulation & Dexterity, Ecosystem & Viability. These pillars are excluded from the index and the remaining weights renormalised — not scored zero.
Category profile
Every company in this category is re-checked on the cadence above by the research agents, and every proposed change is reviewed before it reaches this page.
Top heavy & off-road robots
Full heavy & off-road leaderboard — all 3 with filters →| # | Robot | Company | Status | Autonomy | HVMX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cat 793 with MineStar Command | Caterpillar | commercial | task-autonomous | 76.0 |
| 2 | FrontRunner AHS (930E) | Komatsu | commercial | task-autonomous | 75.7 |
| 3 | 9RX Autonomous | John Deere | commercial | task-autonomous | 72.1 |
Why the HVMX weighs what it weighs
The published reasoning behind every pillar weight in
the Heavy Machine Metric, version 0.2.0.
- Autonomy (0.32) — the heaviest autonomy weight on the platform, because in this class autonomy is the product. The machine already existed and worked; what is being bought is the removal of the operator.
- Commercial (0.26) — autonomous haulage is genuinely deployed at scale in mining today. A machine without a named site is a long way behind one with a fleet running.
- Hardware (0.22) — capacity, and whether autonomy ships as a **retrofit kit** or only on new machines. That distinction decides whether a customer replaces a $3m truck or bolts a kit onto one they already own.
- Mobility (0.20) — runtime and work rate above road speed: the economic case for removing the operator is the third shift, so hours between refuelling is the number that pays for the system.
- Manipulation (0.00) — excluded. A bucket is not a manipulator in any sense this platform's manipulation pillar measures.
- Ecosystem (0.00) — excluded. Caterpillar, Komatsu and Deere are public industrial giants; a venture funding figure is not a signal about them.
Frequently asked questions
How many autonomous heavy machinery are there in 2026?
This index tracks 3 autonomous heavy machinery from 3 companies, counting only machines documented by at least two independent sources.
How many autonomous heavy machinery are commercially available?
3 of 3 are shipping to customers — 3 commercially available and 0 in limited production.
Which countries build the most autonomous heavy machinery?
USA (2) and Japan (1).