Four-wheeled Wall-E… You may’ve seen them rolling up next to you on a crosswalk: food delivery robots. The metal boxes often come with cutesy googly eyes and have taken over sidewalks in cities like Los Angeles. Delivery bot company Starship recently said that its rovers will be on 50 university campuses this fall, up from 30 last year. Starship said it now has 2K+ bots operating in over half of US states. Other bot companies are expanding, too:
Coco, which kicked off in Los Angeles, has expanded to Austin (its first city outside of CA) with resto partners like Tuk Tuk Thai and Aviator Pizza.
Serve Robotics said it’s grown to service 200+ LA restaurants since entering the city’s delivery market last year. FYI: Serve was spun out from Uber-owned Postmates.
Uber Eats partnered with Serve in May, and together they plan to deploy 2K more bots as it expands beyond LA (Nvidia was also a Serve investor).
Bumps in the road… The bot spread hasn’t been smooth. Rovers have been attacked, robbed, and vandalized in Los Angeles. Viral videos show people kicking the bots and stealing food from inside. Starship said its robots will try to maneuver around people who block them, or “politely ask them to move.” But there have also been incidents of the rovers themselves causing issues, like blocking sidewalk access or casually rolling through LA crime scenes.
It’s man vs. machine… The rise of delivery bots coincides with recent efforts in cities like NYC, SF, and Minneapolis to provide better wages and protections for gig workers (like minimum wages for delivery drivers). Gig apps like Uber, DoorDash, and Grubhub may embrace delivery bots and autonomous cars in an effort to lower labor costs. Uber has already teamed up with robotaxi company Waymo to offer self-driving rides.