Two former Google engineers have built a car that’s personalized for delivering your groceries, pizza or dry-cleaning.
Nuro, a Mountain View, California, based startup, unveiled an autonomous vehicle Tuesday designed for making local commerce deliveries.
The company plans to have several of the vehicles making deliveries on public roads by the end of the year. It’s also developing another version of the vehicle that’s suitable for mass production.
The current prototype vehicle is about the height of an SUV but far narrower than a typical car. The electric car features two exterior compartments — two on each side — to hold separate deliveries. Each compartment can be tailored to a specific use, such as cooking a pizza or refrigerating a package. The company has not yet announced partners who intend to use the service.
The vehicle weighs about a third of a standard car, and is built for urban and suburban environments. The company doesn’t envision it driving on highways.
The co-founders were early members of Google’s self-driving car program and left in mid-2016 to start Nuro.
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Two former Google engineers have built a car that's personalized for delivering your groceries, pizza or dry-cleaning https://t.co/vb3NQsIXLP pic.twitter.com/uJdXqpLcpl
— CNN (@CNN) February 3, 2018
Interesting — I see that they are facing a different set of constraints by not carrying people:
Nuro expects to face fewer challenges because it doesn’t carry passengers. Nuro’s narrow size may also be helpful when navigating streets and avoiding pedestrians. It could even sacrifice itself to protect a pedestrian by crashing into a parked car or tree, according to Ferguson.
They also claim to be creating, not eliminating, jobs. I wonder how this will work out…
Although a common concern with automation is the replacement of jobs, Ferguson said he doesn’t believe Nuro’s role will have a negative impact on employment.
“We feel by creating this new technology that’s going to enable this last mile delivery, we’re going to be creating new markets and doing things that previously weren’t possible,” Ferguson said. “This is not swapping out jobs with robots. It’s creating new markets. There will definitely be new employment opportunities.”
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