Heroic TransFormer, a member of the original good faction in TransFormers
Generation 1 and several subsequent series. (Known as Seibertons or Cybertrons in Japan, and renamed as Maximals for Beast Wars).
Most Autobots transform into cars and land-based vehicles. Diverse in personality, they are usually given "human" traits in their various depictions (
fallible, open to error, with personality differences, etc.). Their political economy is based on generosity and on protecting others, especially the weak. As an army, they seem to have been set up solely to fight the Decepticons, who pre-existed them as a fighting force.
The Autobot insignia is a red head, which looks quite like the head of the
Autobot Jazz. In the cartoons, Autobots always fire red laser bolts, distinguishable from the Decepticons' purple bolts.
The Autobots nearly always win, usually because of the Decepticons' arrogance and stupidity, despite their usual inferior starting position (itself pretty strange since Autobot toys and named characters have always outnumbered their Decepticon counterparts). This gives a "moral" dimension to TransFormers stories.
Initially led by Optimus Prime, a strong-willed and steadfast yet also self-questioning and insecure Autobot who transformed into a lorry cab. Later led by a number of characters including
Rodimus Prime,
Ultra Magnus and
Fortress Maximus.
Eventually won the war on Earth (where both sides had crashed), apparently due to their cooperation with humans. Were attempting to re-take
Cybertron (long a Decepticon preserve) when
Unicron struck in Transformers: The Movie. Later took over and rejuvenated Cybertron in series 3 (and after, in Japan) of the cartoon, although in the comics, the war on Cybertron continues indefinitely. (One obscure comic strip in an annual depicts the Autobots eventually winning the war, only to start fighting one another over who was to rule the spoils... hardly in character for the Autobots, probably written by a
Hobbesian).
