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Nuro's driverless bots are delivering FedEx packages in a city that already has autonomous pizza delivery.
In Houston, Nuro's steering wheel-less delivery vehicles have been working alongside FedEx's traditional human-driven delivery fleet since April. The pilot program was first announced Tuesday, with plans to expand from testing to a bigger, more established deployment. Eventually the bot-delivered packages could reach other cities.
Nuro wouldn't disclose how many Nuro delivery bots are roaming around several Houston ZIP codes, but the testing is part of FedEx's "last-mile" plans for home delivery. It wants to see if the driverless vehicles could help with multiple delivery stops and appointment-based drop-offs. The goal is to improve timing and efficiency for same-day and special deliveries.
Autonomous delivery isn't new for Nuro — in fact, that's its whole thing. Instead of ferrying people around, it's about getting deliveries, well, delivered. In 2018, the company started dropping off groceries to customers from Kroger stores in Scottsdale, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. Before the pandemic, Nuro brought Domino's Pizza orders to Houston customers with no one in the vehicle.
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Houston is getting a feel for the autonomous future ahead of the rest of us.