ForwardX is building Chery AMR fleets into automotive intralogistics

ForwardX deployed 435 AMRs at Chery Automobile's Dalian factory in May 2025, describing the project as a brownfield modernization of an existing EV production site without production downtime. The system supports stamping, welding, battery, and final assembly zones and is tied to a vehicle rollout interval of 100 seconds.

The deployment removed 30 workers per shift from material movement and created one of the clearer automotive AMR proof points in the public record. Chery's Dalian plant uses 195 Flex AMRs for small-component delivery, 226 Max1500L and Max2500O AMRs for large racks and heavy transport, and Lynx U1000 towing AMRs connected to Chery's SPS system for autonomous delivery across production zones.

ForwardX was founded in Beijing in 2016 by Nicolas Chee and had raised about $100 million by its first Series C close in 2021, led by Taikang Life Insurance with Qualcomm Ventures and Starlight Capital participating. The Chery deployment arrived more than three years later, shifting the company story from funding and product breadth to dense AMR operations inside a live EV factory.

The broader Chery footprint gives the Dalian case more weight. ForwardX's automotive page records 87 Lynx AMRs at Chery Super Two, 98 Max and Lynx AMRs at Kaifeng, and more than 700 AMRs across Chery facilities. The Dalian fleet shows how multiple robot classes can be combined for just-in-time material delivery rather than one isolated warehouse route.

The competitive field includes Geekplus, MiR, Seegrid, Locus, HAI Robotics, Quicktron, AGV integrators, and in-house automotive logistics teams. ForwardX's distinction is dense brownfield AMR deployment in automotive manufacturing, where uptime, line-side delivery accuracy, and retrofit speed matter more than a generic warehouse demo.

Public material does not show AMR uptime by workshop, intervention frequency, collision incidents, battery-cycle reliability, routing queue time, material-delivery accuracy by production zone, customer renewal terms, or per-robot pricing. The strategic question is whether ForwardX can turn Chery density into a repeatable automotive intralogistics model. If Dalian-level deployments keep production flowing without downtime, ForwardX becomes a factory logistics layer for EV plants rather than a general AMR vendor.

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