The push for autonomous driving has a strong profit motivation. From taxis to trucking, corporate executives dream of the day that they’ll be able to replace professional drivers with sensors and code to save money and increase vehicle uptime. Now, that mentality appears to be moving off the street and into the warehouse.
General Motors is now trying to patent an autonomous forklift, potentially putting certified operators out of work. A patent application from the automaker for a “forklift vehicle” was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on September 17, 2026. Said vehicle doesn’t have a driver’s seat, and while the application does state that the forklift could be operated “autonomously, semi-autonomously, and/or manually,” that may just be boilerplate to give the patent broader applicability.
Engineers appear to have ditched the driver’s seat for a sleek enclosure that houses the forklift assembly on one end and a coupling device at the other end. Connected to a large ring at the top of the forklift, this allows several of them to be strung together into a train, although GM doesn’t explain possible uses for this in the application. It seems like a good thing for storage, allowing forklifts to be parked in lines like shopping carts, but GM also notes that the coupler allows connected forklifts to move perpendicular to each other. In other words, one forklift could turn sideways to grab something while its partner remained facing forward.
The application also discusses extending arms that allow the machines to reach further, and gear that allows them to securely grab pallets. The accompanying drawings show just two wheels on a centered axle, which would likely require Segway-type hardware to keep the machine balanced. But GM did say in the application that multiple axles are possible.
It’s interesting to see this patent application emerge now. An autonomous forklift would have been a perfect addition to GM’s BrightDrop brand, which was supposed to be the automaker’s clearinghouse for commercial-vehicle tech. In addition to the electric vans that actually made it to production, GM showed a self-driving cargo pallet concept called the EP1 when it launched BrightDrop in 2021. The BrightDrop brand may be dead, but perhaps GM is looking to recycle some of its engineering for another product.
And while it’s impossible to deny the skill of forklift operators, warehouses and factories are the next frontier of automated vehicles. Small robotic vehicles are already deployed at scale in BMW and Honda plants, among others. Could forklifts be next?
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