Uber Employs Autonomous Vehicles To Send Food To Your Door Without Human Contact
Remember when drivers were a part of Uber’s business model? That’s long gone in the past, as the company has been delving deep into autonomous services. Its latest move commences a multi-year partnership with self-driving delivery vehicle company Nuro to bring meals and groceries to doorsteps… sans delivery personnel.
After the pandemic, it has now become the norm to open up your phone and have food or your daily provisions arrive on your doorstep within 30 minutes. As life returns to normal, Uber Eats is looking to shorten waiting times for those who have come to expect instant gratification.
Uber Eats will thus be deploying zero-occupancy delivery cars so food can reach customers even when its hands are tied.
Nuro, which has previously partnered with brands such as Walmart, Domino’s, FedEx, will be providing Uber Eats with automotive white vans called side-walk service vehicles that will park just outside your house, leaving their doors open to collect your delivery from.
There will still be an option to have your goods delivered by a person, however.
According to a statement by Uber, Nuro was one of the first companies to be approved to deploy its unmanned fleet of vehicles onto the roads of California, Texas, and Arizona. Incidentally, the first places to test this new delivery system will be in Houston, Texas, and Mountain View, California.
It was previously announced that Uber had teamed up with a separate self-driving company, Motional, to bring driverless deliveries to California at the beginning of 2022 as well.
Nuro’s fully-electric network plays into Uber’s larger plan to go fully electric in the United States and Canada by 2030.
However, you won’t be seeing any of these robotic vans pulling up to your curb anytime soon. The announcement of the project details a 10-year-long partnership which would mean that Uber is just at the beginning stages of the new venture.
[via Reuters and Uber / PR Newswire, images via Nuro]
