Robot Rides Are Going to Deliver Pizza and Parcels Before People
Driverless technology will transform commerce as we know it before widespread chauffeuring of humans.
By Keith Naughton and Kyle Stock
March 13, 2018, 7:00 AM EDT
In the wait for self-driving technology, cell-phone toting tech bros may have to cede their spot in line to pizzas, Craigslist couches and the mounting ephemera of e-commerce.
The future—at least in the near-term—will not only be driverless, but sans passenger as well.
The early conversations around driverless cars have focused on robot taxis because taking the human driver out of a cab seemed like the quickest path to profitability. But an increasing number of companies—automakers, tech giants, startups, parcel services—are seeing autonomous delivery as the more lucrative venture.
"The revolution in commercial vehicles will come first, then the passenger cars" will follow, said Ashwani Gupta, senior vice president of Renault-Nissan’s light commercial vehicle business. "The moment business people start believing this is going to generate additional revenue and that this is going to be more efficient, then I think they’ll start working on it."
And no wonder: The potential market is huge. Consumers now favor shopping online to schlepping to the mall, with Amazon.com Inc. alone delivering more than 5 billion packages to its Prime members last year. Automating the arrival of all those brown boxes on front porches would slash shipping costs in half, experts say. That’s why consultant McKinsey & Co. predicts that in less than a decade, 80 percent of all items will be delivered autonomously."The level of interest around autonomous goods delivery has gone up dramatically," said Asutosh Padhi, a McKinsey senior partner. "The economics will be compelling and it will change consumer expectations in a fundamental way."
continues at bloomberg.com
one more excerpt:
Here’s how short-haul robot delivery might work, according to those creating it: You order an item online or on your phone and specify a window of time for it to be delivered to your home or office. As the package nears its destination, you get an alert telling you to come to the curb to retrieve your merchandise from a locked compartment in the vehicle. You unlock it with a code punched into a touchpad on the side of the vehicle or by scanning a barcode texted to your phone.
"It’s like an Amazon locker on wheels," Shapiro said. |
