Sidewalk bots will pass food to delivery drones as the autonomy economy revs up
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A delivery bot rolls up to a delivery drone… It’s not a joke. Serve Robotics, the Uber-backed company that makes sidewalk delivery robots, is teaming up with Wing, the Alphabet subsidiary that operates delivery drones. Serve bots will pick up some Wing orders from restaurants and deliver them to a nearby drone-loading station. For Nvidia-backed Serve, whose bots make deliveries within two miles of a restaurant, the partnership could help it expand its delivery radius. For Wing, it could help it offer an easier solution for restaurants looking to tap drone delivery. The service will be piloted in Dallas.
Coming in bot… While autonomous deliveries are still rare, sidewalk bots from companies like Serve are slowly becoming part of the pedestrian landscape in some cities. In Los Angeles, Serve’s four-wheeled boxes — which have been humanized with big eyes and names — can be spotted rolling around making Uber Eats deliveries. Serve has 100 bots, only 48 of which are active as of its latest earnings. But it said it’s on track to unleash 2K robots by the end of next year and has plans to expand to other cities.
For customers the upside is they don’t have to tip. And for restaurants, Serve said that its autonomous bots could end up offering a cheaper and more reliable option.
“Our vision is to get the cost of delivery down to $1… and that requires autonomy,” Aduke Thelwell, Serve’s head of investor relations and communications, told Sherwood.
Autonomy can drive economy… but it might take a while. From self-driving cars and drones to sidewalk robo-deliveries, one goal of autonomous tech is to reduce labor costs. But that kind of technology can take a long time to scale, especially in a way that’s cost-effective. Serve is still deeply unprofitable, but it’s hoping that advancements in autonomy can help it scale while lowering costs long term.