Don’t expect a robotaxi to deliver your DoorDash order anytime soon.
Autonomous cars are already shuttling riders around some US cities thanks to a partnership between Uber and Waymo, as well as Tesla’s own robotaxi offering. They function much like traditional ride-hailing trips: You request a ride through an app and then get in the car once it arrives.
Using AVs to deliver restaurant food and other goods, though, “is actually very different from doing autonomous passenger driving or robotaxis,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday.
“The passenger can walk in and walk out of the car, even if the drop-off or pickup locations aren’t perfect,” Xu said. Deliveries, by contrast, require a more precise hand-off between the restaurant and the vehicle, requiring companies like DoorDash “to solve for the end-to-end system,” he said.
“That’s probably the single biggest learning we’ve had,” Xu said on Wednesday.
In April, DoorDash said that it had started making some deliveries in Chicago and Los Angeles with wheeled robots that can navigate sidewalks designed by startup Coco Robotics. DoorDash and Coco previously worked on a pilot program using the robots to make deliveries in Finland through Wolt, DoorDash’s international arm.
Xu added that DoorDash’s experiments with autonomous delivery “have gone great” and that autonomous delivery is “something we’re very excited about.”
Riding in an autonomous vehicle is already an option for some ride-hailing users. In June, Tesla launched a limited version of its robotaxi service in Austin with Tesla safety employees in the passenger seat, and has since expanded to San Francisco with safety employees in the driver’s seat.
Uber offers fully autonomous rides in Waymos in Atlanta and Austin and has plans to add more self-driving vehicles to its network next year through a partnership with EV-maker Lucid and self-driving technology startup Nuro.
For DoorDash, the challenge is moving burgers, groceries, and other stuff from stores to customers’ homes. Many of those items can be delivered in smaller, autonomous vehicles, Xu has said.
“You don’t need a 4,000-pound vehicle to deliver a one- or two-pound item or package,” Xu said on an earnings call in May.
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