Autonomous tuggers and factory AMRs: what Rockwell, Seegrid and Vecna evidence confirms

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that tow carts and carry racks to factory lines are real and paid for, but the public record shows a business still proving it can make money at scale, not one that has. Rockwell Automation, which bought Clearpath Robotics and its OTTO Motors unit in October 2023, said on its November 5, 2026 earnings call that the OTTO business "reached profitability as planned" in the quarter to September, three years after the deal. That is a call remark, with no dollar figure behind it in any filing.

The only audited numbers are about the deal itself. Rockwell's annual report shows Clearpath earned $10 million of an earnout worth up to $50 million, then missed the revenue target it had set for itself before the acquisition for the year to February 2025, so the second payment was forfeited.

The private vendors publish installed-base counts, not finances. Seegrid says its vehicles run at more than 200 customer sites, with more than 2,500 vehicles and more than 20 million autonomous miles as of May 2026. Vecna Robotics, which raised $31 million in September 2026, gives no fleet count at all. The strongest current customer evidence is Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, where named Nissan managers told Business Insider in September that OTTO robots are in the first of six deployment phases. Nissan said that once the rollout is complete, the machines will take over work now done by 64 forklift and tug operators. Most other figures sit on vendor pages with unnamed customers.

For a plant or warehouse operations lead, the practical reading is this: tugger and cart AMRs work in production, but a vendor's fleet total or headline percentage is not evidence that a fleet your size will pay back. Ask for the denominators set out below.

Analysis based on Rockwell Automation's fiscal 2025 and 2026 annual reports (10-K), its November 5, 2026 results release, its February and August 2026 prepared remarks, published transcripts of its August and November 2026 earnings calls, Seegrid's October 2025 Form D filing and releases, Vecna Robotics releases and case pages, OTTO case pages, and reporting by Business Insider, the Pittsburgh Business Times, The Robot Report, Modern Materials Handling, Material Handling 24/7, Assembly Magazine and Automated Warehouse, all retrieved November 13, 2026. AI assistance was used in research and drafting, and the piece was checked by a separate AI fact-check and AI editorial review. Servospace did not interview the companies or customers or visit any site. Calculations are Servospace arithmetic on published figures and are labeled as such. Last reviewed November 13, 2026.

In this analysis

• The short answer
• What kind of evidence each number is
• Rockwell and OTTO: what the filings show
• Rockwell and OTTO: what executives said on calls
• Seegrid: a growing count, a thin public record
• Vecna: tuggers inside a broader pitch
• Pilot, live, paid or customer confirmed
• What the denominators show
• What to ask a vendor
• Limitations
• What would change this assessment

The short answer

All three vendors also sell pallet and forklift robots. This guide covers towing, cart and rack transport. For autonomous forklifts, including Vecna's pallet case, see what customers confirm about autonomous forklifts. For MiR's tuggers and carts under Teradyne, see what Teradyne's filings and customers confirm.

What kind of evidence each number is

Rockwell and OTTO: what the filings show

Rockwell's fiscal 2026 annual report, filed November 12, 2026, records the Clearpath purchase at $609 million net of cash acquired: $566 million in cash plus $43 million for the fair value of an earnout. Of the purchase price, $283 million was booked as goodwill and $313 million as intangible assets, mostly technology ($270 million). All of it sits in the Intelligent Devices segment.

The earnout is the most useful number in the record. The filing says sellers could earn up to $50 million "if Clearpath achieves revenue targets that it had established prior to the acquisition" over two periods ending February 29, 2024 and February 28, 2025. Its table shows:

Servospace arithmetic: $10 million paid out of up to $50 million possible. The filing does not say how the $50 million was split between periods, so the share of each target that was hit cannot be computed. What can be said is that Clearpath did not reach the revenue target "that it had established prior to the acquisition" for the period ending February 28, 2025.

The annual report gives no OTTO revenue, orders, units or profit. What changed between filings is the label. The fiscal 2025 10-K listed autonomous mobile robots as one item inside "Motion Control." The fiscal 2026 10-K gives them their own line in the segment description: "Autonomous Mobile Robots - Offering a comprehensive portfolio of production logistics technologies." The fiscal 2025 report also listed "Clearpath" and "Otto" as mobile robot trademarks; the fiscal 2026 report lists only "Otto." A separate line in a description is not a separate revenue line, and none appears. The impairment discussion in the fiscal 2026 report covers only the Sensia joint venture; no Clearpath impairment was found in it.

Rockwell's fourth-quarter release, filed with the SEC on November 5, does not mention OTTO or mobile robots.

Rockwell and OTTO: what executives said on calls

Everything Rockwell has said about OTTO's growth and profit comes from calls and prepared remarks, not filings.

Read together, the remarks say three things: OTTO sales grew at double-digit rates in recent quarters, the unit lost money for about two years, and it turned profitable in the September 2026 quarter. They do not say on what measure (segment operating earnings, or after allocated costs), by how much, or from what sales base. "Double-digit growth" on an undisclosed base cannot be turned into a dollar figure. The Q3 and Q4 Q&A quotes each come from a single published transcription; the MarketBeat summary independently reports the profitability statement.

Seegrid: a growing count, a thin public record

Seegrid sells tow tractors and pallet-lifting robots. Its Tow Tractor S7 page rates it at 10,000 pounds of towing and 4 mph, with an 18-week lead time. Its counts have grown, but they combine tuggers and lift trucks and are cumulative "deployed" totals, not vehicles running today.

Two drifts stand out. Seegrid's own timeline puts 15 million miles in 2023, while it told reporters "more than 14 million" in September 2024. And the site count stayed at "200+" from 2024 to 2026 while the vehicle count went from more than 2,000 to more than 2,500 (Servospace arithmetic: a rise of about 500 if both floors are taken as stated), which could mean more vehicles per site or simply that "200+" was not updated.

Seegrid's company record shows a business in transition. In November 2024 it ended its product and distribution agreements with Raymond, the Toyota-owned forklift maker that had worked with Seegrid since 2012 and launched a tow tractor built on Seegrid's guidance technology in 2016, to sell directly, citing "record-breaking end-user sales, with particularly high demand for our advanced autonomous lift truck solutions." In September 2025 it named Chris Baker chief executive, replacing retiring CEO Joe Pajer. Its Form D filed October 2, 2025 reports $24,999,998 sold of a $50,000,000 equity offering, with revenue range "Decline to Disclose," as the Pittsburgh Business Times reported. That came a year after a $50 million Series D. The Robot Report noted in 2024 that the company had been through bankruptcy and layoffs in earlier years. None of this shows how its tugger business is doing today.

The customer-named tugger evidence is old. At Whirlpool's washing-machine plant in Clyde, Ohio, Assembly Magazine reported in June 2017 more than 50 Seegrid pallet trucks and tow tractors, quoting Whirlpool's Jim Keppler: "The VGVs have let us move more than 150 people into value-added positions." Seegrid's S7 page still carries a Keppler quote today. Seegrid's May 2026 release describes robots running 24/7 in an unnamed washing-machine factory with 3,200 workers; it does not name the plant, and this guide does not assume it is Clyde. At Sumitomo Drive Technologies in Chesapeake, Virginia, Material Handling 24/7 reported in March 2023 one tow tractor replacing lift-truck runs of about 3,000 feet round trip, made 30 to 40 times a day, with a Sumitomo vice president citing lower labor cost and better safety.

Vecna: tuggers inside a broader pitch

Vecna Robotics' September 10, 2026 release announcing $31 million led by Unless says demand for its CaseFlow picking product has been "more than doubling year over year" since its 2025 launch and cites "continued adoption of its autonomous forklift and tugger solutions." It gives no tugger count, site count or revenue. Automated Warehouse lists Caterpillar, DHL and GEODIS as customers, a company-supplied list that does not say which products each uses. The GEODIS figures in the release are for case picking, covered in our collaborative picking guide, not tugging.

The named tugger case is Shape Corp., an automotive supplier. Modern Materials Handling reported in December 2023 that three vehicles were then in use, with plans to deploy two more by the end of that year, and that Shape hoped by 2026 or 2027 to have AMRs everywhere in the plant. The article quotes Shape manufacturing engineer Amy Karentz and production supervisor Ryan Mapes on how the loop runs, not those fleet counts. Vecna's Shape page says efficiency gains "prompted them to expand their fleet within the first year," without a number. No later Shape statement on fleet size was found.

Vecna's most specific tugger figures are on a case page for an unnamed "public discount retailer": five tuggers, 23 hours a day, seven days a week, $9.73 per hour per robot, and less than eight months to positive return. Servospace arithmetic: if all five robots bill all 23 hours, that is about $224 per robot per day and about $1,119 a day for the fleet, or roughly $7,800 a week. The page does not say whether $9.73 is a subscription price, an all-in cost or a modeled figure, and the customer is not named.

On EDGAR, Vecna Robotics, Inc. has Form D filings from 2018 and 2022; no later Form D under that name was found as of November 13, 2026, including for the round announced in September 2026. That is an absence in one database, not evidence the rounds did not close.

Pilot, live, paid or customer confirmed

Nissan is the clearest current case because the customer speaks on the record and describes problems as well as progress. Two robots were once dispatched to the same spot at the same time. The robots themselves have been reliable, plant director Tim Slate said, but connecting their software to Nissan's material-flow system and production controllers has been harder. Staff from integrator Powerhouse Controls have worked at the plant around the clock, and forklift operators stay available as a backup. Slate called it the plant's largest cost-reduction initiative this year, and Nissan said 64 operator roles will go once the rollout is complete, with workers moved to other jobs and positions not backfilled. It is studying stamping and general assembly, with potential projects as soon as 2027. It did not give a robot count, a cost or a payback period.

The largest fleets in the record, OTTO's more than 160 robots on an unnamed automotive line and Seegrid's 50-plus at Whirlpool, are either unnamed or nine years old. That is the same pattern Servospace found in autonomous forklifts too: the bigger the number, the less likely a customer has put its name to it.

What the denominators show

At the S7's top automatic speed of 4 mph, the Seegrid fleet average of roughly 4 to 5 miles a day is about one to 1.2 hours of travel at full speed per vehicle (Servospace arithmetic). That is not a utilization rate: the count includes lift trucks, slower travel near people, idle robots and vehicles that may have been retired. It shows why a cumulative mileage milestone says little about how hard a fleet works.

What to ask a vendor

For other warehouse and factory automation coverage, see the warehouse robots topic page. Seed-stage factory AMR makers make the same kind of claims, such as Aformic's $34 million in orders, which is the company's own figure.

Limitations

• No profit measure. Rockwell's "reached profitability" is a call remark. Rockwell has not said which profit measure, for how long, or by how much, and its filings give no OTTO revenue or profit.
• Single transcriptions. The August and November Q&A quotes each come from one published transcript. The profitability statement is also reported in MarketBeat's call summary.
• Earnout split unknown. The 10-K does not say how the $50 million was divided between periods, so the share of each revenue target that was met cannot be computed.
• Mixed fleets. Seegrid's vehicle and mileage counts include lift trucks, not only tuggers. OTTO's case pages mix rack carriers, carts and pallet lifts.
• Old named cases. The Whirlpool, Sumitomo and Shape accounts are from 2017, 2023 and 2023. Fleets may have grown, shrunk or been replaced since.
• Absence is not proof. No later Shape fleet statement, no post-2022 Vecna Form D and no Clearpath impairment were found in the sources searched. Each may exist elsewhere.
• Vendor case pages are not audits. GE HealthCare, Mauser and the unnamed OEM and retailer figures are the vendors' accounts. No customer statement confirming them was found.
• Related evidence. The same customer-versus-vendor test applied to inventory-counting drones (Verity, Corvus Robotics and Gather AI) is in warehouse inventory drones: what IKEA, DSV, GEODIS and other customers confirm.
• Scope. Other tugger and cart makers, including MiR, Locus Robotics, BlueBotics and many Chinese suppliers, are covered elsewhere or not at all.

What would change this assessment

• Rockwell's fiscal first-quarter 2027 report (last year's equivalent was February 5) and any later 10-Q: a separate OTTO revenue or profit figure, or a statement on whether profitability held.
• Nissan Smyrna updates: a robot count, completion of later phases, or the stamping and general assembly decisions Nissan said could start as soon as 2027.
• A new Seegrid Form D or count: any amendment to the 2025 offering, or a fleet count that separates tow tractors from lift trucks.
• Any named Vecna tugger customer stating a current fleet size.

Rockwell Automation, Seegrid, Vecna Robotics, Nissan and the other named companies were not contacted for this analysis; all figures come from their filings, published statements and the reporting cited.