DoorDash (YC S13) and Cruise (YC W14) to Deliver Food via Self-Driving Cars
venturebeat.comHmm, food delivery seems like the last thing that needs to autonomous driving given there needs to be someone to pick up the food and to deliver it the last few feet to the waiting customer.
People will meet the vehicle outside if it saves them money.
In the very long term. You’re going to be rifling through bags looking for your order.
Or... perhaps you'll just be presented with a bunch of lockers, and only the locker with your order in it will open.
This sounds like a problem that can be solved immediately, and when 20% + ~$5 is currently going to delivery fees for these orders, it's going to be easy to get people to go to some extra trouble.
For its first year of existence, Uber Eats in my city didn't require drivers to go to the door of the user, so it's something that already happened millions of times without anyone trying to force it.
The Uber drivers had to go pick up the food.
The news here is that the safety drivers are also going to cart around food while monitoring the autonomous vehicle’s systems.