A human life gets to be many different things, but most importantly, it gets to be a stage for constant evolution. The reason why continuous progression appears as so essential is because, if we don’t pursue it, we just make ourselves vulnerable to some serious stagnation over time, and that can cause problems on a scale bigger than any pre-conceived boundary. Hence, we have, on our part, developed a wide expanse of growth avenues to help us avoid the stated fate. Talk about our growth avenues, each one notably boasts a unique value in its own right, therefore making any comparisons a bit futile. However, from solely an impact standpoint, we have to give technology the edge.   Technology doesn’t emerge as the winner only because of its ingenious skill-set. Instead, the reasoning here also has a lot do with the creation’s reach. Unlike any other concept, technology would somehow manage to impact our entire spectrum and guess what? It won’t stop there. The creation will continue building upon those early foundations. In fact, Uber’s latest move should significantly aid that cause.
Uber Eats is officially launching two autonomous delivery pilots in Los Angeles. As per certain reports, the company has partnered with Motional and Serve Robotics to handle one program each. Initially, both the programs will serve just a selected share of merchants. Furthermore, Serve’s program is likely to cover shorter distances around the West Hollywood area. The details, on the other hand, hint at much longer trips for Motional, which will primarily operate in Santa Monica. While the service itself is naturally going to charge customers for the delivery, Motional won’t be able to do so, at least during the initial phase, as the company still hasn’t received a deployment permit from the California’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Considering the company is only allowed to test with a safety drive on-board, the motional deliveries will have a safety operator, who’ll be in the vehicle at all times. The operator will even have to control the vehicle manually under certain delivery scenarios pertaining to distance.
“If there is a drop-off point that’s close by, but not within Motional’s current autonomous service area, the vehicle will be operated manually in order to deliver the order to the customer’s house, rather than asking them to walk to meet the AV,” said a Motional spokesperson. “This is done to ensure a convenient and seamless experience for customers.”
Serve’s robots, however, are mostly going to function on their own. They will have a remote operator, but that’s just for emergency situations.
This marks the first collaboration between Uber Eats and Motional, whose main focus, so far, has been robotaxis. It’s also interesting that Uber decided against partnering with Aurora, despite being a stakeholder in the company, but the ride-hailing giant has indicated more partnerships along the way, so we might see Aurora and many other names joining the pack soon.