Delivery is becoming autonomous. Technology advancements are growing to assist businesses in delivering food, groceries, and other supplies – services that were critical during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The fundamentals of getting a product from point A to point B are nothing new. For years, the pleasant milkman was a community institution, and many flats used to have corridors to allow delivery employees to leave food safely via the back door near the kitchen. Let’s not forget about the hardworking postal workers who deliver mail to homes and businesses on a regular basis. The technologies that accompany delivery services, on the other hand, are revolutionising the industry.
Ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft, which use cellphones and websites to operate, have gone beyond competing with taxis and town cars to create a new pool of potential drivers.
Motional And Uber
Meanwhile, Motional, a self-driving technology firm, has teamed up with Uber to test autonomous delivery in Santa Monica. By early next year, Uber Eats customers will be able to buy restaurant meal kits and have them delivered by one of Motional’s modified all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis.
Motional and Lyft, a joint venture aimed at commercialising self-driving technology, recently announced their plans to establish the world’s first fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Las Vegas in 2023.
Motional will be entering the driverless delivery industry for the first time, and Uber will be partnering with an autonomous vehicle fleet provider for the first time. This initial push into delivery marks Motional’s “evolution to a dual-purpose product approach,” according to the company.
Robotaxis
Motional will deploy the all-electric Hyundai IONIQ 5-based robotaxi as its next-generation autonomous vehicle, with in-car upgrades in place to enable autonomous deliveries. Motional’s SAE Level 4 cars will be employed for the first time for distribution applications, signalling the company’s shift to a dual-purpose product strategy.
Motional’s President and CEO, Karl Iagnemma, remarked, “Today, Motional enters the autonomous delivery sector.” “We’re thrilled to have Uber as our first delivery partner, and we’re looking forward to putting our trusted driverless technology to work for customers in California. We’re sure that this will be a fruitful partnership with Uber, and we see many long-term prospects for Motional’s technology to be used across the Uber platform.”
“We’re pleased to collaborate with Motional in 2022 to test a new type of delivery for Uber Eats customers,” said Sarfraz Maredia, VP and Head of Uber Eats in the United States and Canada. “Our customers and merchant partners have come to expect Uber to provide convenience, reliability, and innovation, and this partnership represents a significant opportunity for us to meet — and exceed— those expectations.”
In the past, Motional has been more active in Nevada, where it has been performing driverless tests since November 2020. Motional announced ambitions to extend its presence in California this summer with the opening of a new Los Angeles operations centre to facilitate testing on public highways, and this pilot with Uber fulfils those objectives.
Only a few AV businesses, including Cruise, Nuro, Waymo, Weride, and Zoox, have permission to test without a human safety operator in California, and only Cruise, Waymo, and Nuro are permitted to deploy AVs commercially.
Motional is a self-driving technology firm dedicated to making self-driving cars a safe, dependable, and accessible reality. Hyundai Motor Group, one of the world’s major car manufacturers delivering smart mobility solutions, and Aptiv, a global industrial technology leader in advanced safety, electrification, and vehicle communication, founded the firm in 2020 as a joint venture.
Motional is based in Boston and operates in the United States and Asia.
