Robot Delivery Vans Are Arriving Before Self-Driving Cars (bloomberg.com)

The future of driverless driving looks like a giant toaster with a funny hat. From a report: That's an approximation of a new autonomous vehicle unveiled Tuesday by Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup that's been cryptic about its business plan since it launched about 18 months ago. Nuro's shiny, minimalist appliance on wheels doesn't have doors or windows to speak of, because it will be carrying packages -- not people. As every major automaker and dozens of tech companies race to replace drivers in Uber cars and taxi fleets, Nuro is ignoring humans altogether and steering for Amazon.com, United Parcel Service and any retailer looking to build its e-commerce business.

Comments

Re:Most packages are delivered during the day

[alvinrod]

The only reason the packages are delivered during the day when no one is home is because delivery drivers don't want to work early mornings when people are up but still home or late evenings when most people are back from work, school, etc.

Automated delivery vehicles have no such requirements and could easily offer delivery of packages in the early mornings or late evenings when people are awake and at home to receive delivery. Once you don't have a human driver, there's no reason to keep the same system that was subject to the constraints of a human driver.

Re: Most packages are delivered during the day

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't use Amazon because the world will end" isn't a great argument. Clearly people prefer to avoid the hassle of buying things in a store, and prefer to pay less for the same item. (duh). The world is going to change, some things will be better, some things will be worse. But you aren't going to stop the tide by yelling at it. Solutions to the problems you're worried about will be found or we'll descend into anarchy and that's OK too.

Re:Most packages are delivered during the day

[blindseer]

when no one is home. How do these packages make it out of the van and to my porch/lobby/mailbox?

I have a few guesses. Ballista? Trebuchet? Catapult? Electromagnetic ramrod? No, probably none of those because that would be too awesome. More likely a smaller version of those hydraulic arms seen on the sides of garbage trucks that they use to pick up trash cans. Put the packages in cubbyholes on the interior of the van and program the system to correlate the cubbyholes to the addresses. Make it modular to accommodate different sized packages.

I will also put my ideas for alternate delivery means in the public domain if there is a chance that I thought of something that might be worthy of a patent. I'd like to see packages delivered to my door via a van mounted robotic ballista.

Then again, maybe I'd order an anvil for my neighbor with the dog that won't stop barking. Aaaaand I watched too many Wile E. Coyote cartoons as a child.