Rehearsal for 2050: what's known about Kawasaki Corleo, a hydrogen-powered robot horse for off-roading

At Expo 2025 in Osaka, Kawasaki rolled out (or rather, kicked out with its hooves) the Corleo concept - a four-legged hydrogen-powered robot horse. It can be ridden, but it has no wheels, no tail either, but it has a hybrid hydrogen-electric engine and a "biker's soul in a transformer's body" design. This is not a vehicle yet, but a manifesto: about what mobility without asphalt, without petrol and without compromises can be. Corleo is not a mass-produced product, but rather a vision: "what if we crossed a motorbike with a horse, added artificial intelligence and stuffed 'green' hydrogen into it all?". And if you think that sounds like a trailer for the new Horizon Zero Dawn, you're not alone.

Fast forward to now.

• R&D centaurs: who tamed the iron horse?
• How Corleo works
• How Corleo thinks, walks, and doesn't fall down.
• A note of scepticism
• The year 2050 is still a long way off
• In the dry

Kawasaki Heavy Industries isn't just a company that can make bikes that roar like a hungry tiger and robots that run like Swiss watches. It's a whole techno-beast with decades of experience in anything with an engine, sensors and a desire to move. And the Kawasaki Corleo is a concept car that fulfils its strange but fascinating idea: "What if we made a riding machine with four legs instead of wheels and fuelled it with hydrogen?". Actually, Corleo is a mix of biker soul and robotic stuffing, born somewhere at the intersection of motorbike engineering and mech-fiction. Of course, for now, it's a show toy to demonstrate future possibilities. Kawasaki is probing the future of personal transport for those who can't get enough of a motorbike and lack the off-road capabilities of a quad bike. Now - just a hop on, hop off-road, with a HUD screen and in tune with weight sensors.

The Kawasaki Corleo is a four-legged robot that can be ridden like a horse, but with hydrogen instead of oats. Exactly so: a steel horse on ecological fuel. Externally, it's a hybrid of biker aesthetics and equestrian grace, as if someone made a sportbike and a stallion spend an evening alone in a lab. All this looks not only spectacular, but also has a practical sense: Corleo is designed for off-road, difficult landscapes and those moments when ordinary wheels pass away, and the soul asks for adventure.

However, do not hurry to choose a colour for your "robocon" - the commercial launch is planned tentatively for 2050. That is, now it is more an imagination of engineers than an option for the next shopping tour to the Alps. But the concept already hints: the transport of the future will not only be clean, but also spectacularly strange.

Centaurs from the R&D department: who tamed the iron horse?

The Corleo story didn't start with a high-profile announcement at Expo, but, according to some sources, with a quiet question somewhere in Kawasaki's R&D office back in 2018: "What if we made a robot that moves like an animal?". And that was it - off it went. More precisely - ran on four legs. Of course, there are no official reports on the start of the project - engineering legends are not written in press releases. But even then the idea of something that could leave the wheels in the past and run where they are tugging was born.

Who exactly tamed the Corleo is still a mystery behind seven NDAs. All we know is that Takashi Torii, one of Kawasaki's top guys, shone at the presentation, but the real heroes, those who assembled this cyber horse, remain in the shadows. But we can say with a high degree of certainty: a whole techno-circus worked on the project - bikers, roboticists, and, you won't believe it, even specialists in animal behaviour.

And it makes sense. To make a car move like a real horse, it's not enough to simply attach a motor to the legs. You need to know how the animal balances, how it transfers weight, how it reacts to obstacles. Kawasaki has probably assembled a team that thinks not just through instructions, but through instincts - albeit simulated ones.

The Corleo was conceived as a horse that is unafraid of rocks, slopes and the future.

Instead of hooves - rubber paws, instead of instincts - sensors, instead of GPS - artificial intelligence. At the heart of it all is biomimicry, that is, an attempt to study how living beings move and give this ability to a machine. Because when you need to get through a thicket or climb over a rubble pile, your legs do a better job than any suspension.

How the Corleo works

At the heart of the Kawasaki Corleo is a 150cc hydrogen engine, which does not turn the wheels (because they are not here, I remind you), but produces electric current and directs it to the paws. Because each of the four legs works autonomously and ends with a rubber "hoof", which holds traction both on tarmac and on the ground, where even a tank would hesitate. References to the classics of bike-building remain - for example, the pendulum suspension mechanism (the one that in a motorbike holds the rear wheel and dampens shocks) now works in the Corleo's legs. But instead of a wheel, it's an independent robotic leg with a rubber hoof divided into segments to better cling to terrain. Because slippery rocks or a sandy trail are no reason to slip.

The body is a mix of metal and carbon fibre. Sturdy, but not like a brick, because you have to keep it light and manoeuvrable. Everything is powered by a 150cc hydrogen engine that doesn't spin the gears directly, but generates current for each leg. This arrangement allows you to control the movement of each leg separately - almost like an animal with its own brain for each limb.

The control is a separate thrill - it's as intuitive as a Segway: you just tilt your body, and sensors in the footrests and handlebars read your movements. It's almost like riding a real horse, only this one isn't afraid of thunderstorms, it's not a stallion - and it definitely won't bite. All this is complemented by a HUD display that shows fuel, navigation, stability and your own weight so the robot knows how to balance better.

Externally, the Corleo is pure Kawasaki: sleek, aggressive, made of metal and carbon fibre, with a headlight shield that looks more like a helmet from the future.

And as the cherry on the cake, it can also jump over obstacles. Because driving simply forwards is for wheels, but Corleo was invented to jump over your ideas of transport.

How Corleo thinks, walks and doesn't fall over

Corleo thinks, analyses, keeps its balance and doesn't ask you when you last pumped your abs. All thanks to the inbuilt artificial intelligence that monitors both the terrain and you in real time - every tilt of the body, every micro-slope is captured, digested, and instantly translated into movement correction. So if you sit crooked - Corleo has already levelled the situation, probably before you even thought about it.

Each leg is a separate on-board unit with complete freedom of action. The four legs are four independent units that adapt to any mess under your hooves, from rocks to boggy happiness. And then there's the 'instability prediction' system - sounds like a diagnosis, but it's actually a feature: the Corleo scans for risks and adjusts steps before it even starts to lose its balance.

And that's not all. The HUD display with projection navigation allows you to illuminate the path at night, so, roughly speaking, Corleo shines a light under its feet to keep you out of trouble. It's all powered by biomimicry - engineers actually analysed how horses move to make the metal legs work as naturally as possible. The result? A walking bike that not only obeys your commands, but also knows where to stay off on its own.

A touch of scepticism

As soon as Kawasaki revealed the Corleo at Expo 2025 in Osaka, the internet started breathing heavily. Obviously, such a thing couldn't get past posts like "gimme two" and vice versa - besides "wow", there was also "pfft". Because the sceptics did not slumber either: someone immediately asked where, in fact, to fill it with hydrogen, how much it will cost, and why we have to wait until 2050. The jokers immediately ask, "Is there a vagina?". And they are sceptical about the quality of the visualisation. Some admired the design and technology, others reminded that between "concept" and "shop" lies a chasm filled with problems with logistics, laws and banal money. And while Corleo in 2025 is just a beautiful mock-up, these questions are not unfounded.

Some quotes:

• "Sounds like a late-night April Fool's joke."
• "A riding pokémon? Take my money!"
• "Has anyone ever ridden one? It's not the smoothest ride. Besides, with all the movement and bumps, this thing would fall apart in a month."
• "Can I climb Everest with this.... I need built-in oxygen tanks."
• "Horses are probably cheaper and better."
• "Is there any video of someone riding it? Even if it can't jump. I've seen enough videos of mechanical bulls to know it could be disastrous. A bot like that might be useful for transport, but we have quad bikes for that."
• "I'll buy that shit. On Halloween you'll all see me as a knight in shining armour and my faithful steed galloping or lane-splitting or whatever it's called on the roads of California."
• "Wrap me up three of these delights and hurry up. Finally a mechanical sled dog. I like it."
• "I'd rather believe we'll get time travel tomorrow than this thing be viable even by 2050."
• "Cool video to attract rich idiots to invest."
• "You know it's a good startup if it includes a shitty 3D visualisation ad"
• "As a motorcyclist, I say this seat combined with these moves will destroy your pelvis"

The year 2050 is still a long way off

Kawasaki is in no rush to put the Corleo on sale, with a tentative launch date of 2050. The Corleo is not a commodity, but an experiment in "if", while at the same time it could be a serious story about what transport could be like when we finally mature as a civilisation and run on hydrogen rather than petrol.

But this "concept horse" has plans for more than just taking people for rides in the woods. With the ability to climb where the wheels weep, the Corleo could become the new friend of rescuers, explorers, inspectors and those leading eco-tours without harming nature. Great for journeys where "there's no road, but you have to go" and also a great demonstrator of how Japan is pushing its green strategy and moving towards carbon neutrality.

But there's a lot of nuance between "ideal" and "realistic." There needs to be infrastructure for hydrogen, new laws for these iron centaurs, the technology isn't 100% ready yet, and the price, well, let's face it - it won't be for the daily commute. And yet, even if the Corleo never goes mainstream, the development itself, the sensors, the algorithms, the control system - all of it will find its way into other Kawasaki products. Because in this game, it's not just the finish line that matters, it's how wild and awesome you galloped to it.

The bottom line

The real state of affairs is this: the Corleo is a concept for now, and Kawasaki is being honest about it. What was shown at Expo 2025 in Osaka is a mock-up. Beautiful, futuristic, with a shiny body and bold looking headlights, but no real "heart". Inside, it's not yet the kind of machinery you can take off-road. More like a teaser on the big screen of the future, rather than a trailer for mass production.

Yes, the road to release is long, complicated and dotted with questions: where to refuel with hydrogen? who will legislate the four-legged robots? how much will it all cost? But the point is not that Corleo isn't ready - it's that it's already forcing a rethinking of what the personal transport of the future could be. A new type of interaction between man, machine and environment. And so far, it's just a mock-up - but a very loud one.