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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.
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.