Uber eats launched two self driving delivery pilots in Los Angeles on Monday local time in cooperation with serve robotics, a start-up company of robot sidewalk delivery, and motional, a autonomous vehicle technology company The new projects are part of a series of new products launched by Uber on its ride and delivery platform, which will be announced at the company's global product event on Monday.
The cooperation of motional was first announced in December. It aims to cooperate with AV fleet suppliers for the first time, and it is also the first time for motional to try independent delivery. Before that, motional has been focusing on robot taxis, and it has established partnerships with companies such as LYFT and via.
Serve robotics is actually a derivative of Uber, so it's not surprising to see the cooperation between the two companies in the field of delivery. However, it is worth noting that Uber did not cooperate with Aurora in view of the cooperative relationship between the two companies in the field of freight transportation, common history and the fact that Uber is the main investor of Aurora. Aurora acquired Uber ATG, the autonomous driving Department of Uber, in 2020. According to the terms of the transaction, Uber invested US $400 million in the company to make it own 26% of the shares.
Uber told techcrunch that the company is considering cooperating with other participants in this field, and the public may begin to see more cooperation in the future.
It is understood that the two pilot projects started on a small scale and only transported food from some unnamed merchants. Serve's project will focus on short trips to West Hollywood. According to the Uber spokesperson, motional's project will handle long-distance delivery services in Santa Monica.
"From these two pilots, we will be able to understand the actual needs of customers, the actual needs of businesses and what meaningful delivery is when we start integrating our platform with video companies. I hope they are successful. We will learn in the coming months and find ways to expand our scale," the spokesman said.
According to Uber, customers will charge for the delivery services of serve and motional - including the cost of food. However, it is not completely clear how Uber and motional will operate. In California, motional needs a deployment license from the motor vehicle administration to charge for automatic delivery services. So far, it has only one test permit for a safe driver.
In answering this question, Uber only revealed that "motional and Uber do not expect to charge some generally applicable delivery fees at this initial stage".
Motional did not respond to a request for comment.
There seems to be no law restricting the company from charging for robot delivery on the sidewalk, so serve is safe. Uber said that if customers decide to tip the serve robot, they will be compensated.
In addition, according to the test license rules of motional in California DMV, a human safety operator will be on the vehicle during delivery. According to the Uber spokesman, the operator will also drive the delivery vehicle manually as needed when it is close to the customer's alighting place.
The company said that serve's robot can operate under level 4 autonomy in some cases. Uber said that during the Uber pilot, the robot will be monitored by a remote operator who will take over under certain use conditions, such as crossing the road.
Customers living in one of the two geographically fenced pilot areas will see an option when checking out, that is, to send meals by autonomous vehicle. If they choose this option, customers can track the food as usual. When the food arrives, they will be notified so that they can meet with the autonomous vehicle outside. Whether the food is in a refrigerator like robot in serve or in the back seat of a car in motional, customers will get a password on their mobile phone to allow them to unlock the vehicle and take the food.