DoorDash Jumps on the Autonomous Delivery Bandwagon
The streets of San Francisco are getting another driverless car
Delivery company DoorDash is partnering with self-driving car company Cruise to test food and grocery delivery early this year via an autonomous vehicle in San Francisco.
A rep said the company will start with one vehicle and add “several more” over the next six months.
The vehicle will deliver to customers who have opted in to autonomous delivery and whose addresses are within the “operating area.”
According to a statement, DoorDash will “evaluate … safety, operational and other learnings.”
Cruise was founded in 2013. It joined startup incubator Y Combinator the following year and partnered with General Motors in 2016. It says it has cars on the road in California, Arizona and Michigan.
When asked why DoorDash partnered with Cruise specifically, the DoorDash rep cited Cruise’s relationship with GM as well as its focus on dense urban areas.
This marks the latest in an expanding list of autonomous delivery experiments, including:
- Kroger’s self-driving grocery-delivery pilot in Arizona with robotics company Nuro
- Delivery company Postmates’ autonomous robot in California
- Walmart and Ford’s autonomous grocery delivery partnership in Florida
- Autonomous delivery vehicle company Udelv’s deal to deliver driverless cargo vans to supermarkets in Oklahoma
- Robotics company Kiwibots’ deliveries in California (despite one that recently caught fire)
- Transportation and robotics company Segway-Ninebot’s autonomous delivery robot, Loomo Delivery, which it will debut at CES for short-distance deliveries of takeout, parcels and other goods
