A US defense company called Forterra has revealed that more than 100 of its Lancer vehicles—unmanned platforms that look like oversized ATVs with cameras and sensors—have been working in combat zones in Ukraine for the past nine months. This is the largest deployment of self-driving military vehicles in active combat by any American company TechCrunch.

The vehicles arrived in October 2025 with funding from the US defense budget. In nine months, they have driven more than 2,500 miles across 1,100 missions, carried nearly 400 tons of supplies, and helped evacuate 52 people from active combat zones. Forterra's chief growth officer, Scott Sanders, a former Marine, shared these details with the press.

Each Lancer runs on gasoline and can carry up to 750 kilograms (about 1,650 pounds) of cargo. That's roughly three times what Ukraine's own homemade military robots can carry, which are usually lighter and battery-powered so they can be made quickly and cheaply in large numbers.

Why they're not actually autonomous

Here is the surprising part: soldiers on the ground are actually controlling these vehicles remotely, like piloting a drone. They are not driving themselves.

Two reasons explain this. First, the vehicles are too valuable to risk if the self-driving software fails. Second, Forterra's self-driving system is not yet reliable enough for the chaos of real combat, where signals get jammed and GPS stops working.

This gap between what companies advertise and what actually works in the field is a familiar problem. Commercial self-driving car companies have struggled with the same issue for over a decade. Now we are seeing it play out in a war zone, where the stakes are much higher. A US Army officer, Sergeant Major Corey Wilkens, was quoted in the news reports, showing that the Pentagon is watching this carefully and learning from it.

Money and business

Forterra has raised more than $500 million in investor funding to develop these vehicles. The company has also won several military contracts in 2026: a production award from the US Marine Corps (June 1), a $92 million order (May 25), and recognition as one of the top national security companies in America (May 11) Forterra newsroom.

Interestingly, Forterra has not announced the Ukraine deployment itself in any official press release. News outlets found out about it by asking the company directly, not through a company announcement. This choice about what to publicize and what to keep quiet is worth noticing.

Ukraine's much bigger robot plan

Forterra's 100 vehicles are just a small part of a much larger effort. Ukraine plans to buy or build 25,000 unmanned ground vehicles by mid-2026, more than double what it had in 2025, according to Defense News. Ukraine's government has stated this goal publicly.

So the American contribution is small but important: it is the first real-world combat test of a US-built robot of this type, even though most of the robots Ukraine is using are built in Ukraine.

The two types of robots are designed differently. Ukrainian robots are light and battery-powered so they can be made fast and sold cheaply. The Forterra Lancer is heavier and runs on gas, so it can carry more cargo and travel farther on a single tank. That difference comes from how each was built: one for wartime urgency, the other for what a defense company planned in advance.

What the numbers really mean

Driving 2,500 miles across 1,100 missions sounds impressive, but here's what it actually represents: it shows that humans can reliably control these robots by remote to deliver supplies and evacuate wounded soldiers. It does not show that the robots can drive and make decisions on their own in a war zone where enemies are jamming signals and destroying GPS.

For military leaders deciding whether to buy more of these vehicles, that distinction is critical. The robots have proven themselves at delivering supplies and helping evacuate people—but not yet at operating independently in heavy combat. Whether they can do that next is the big question.