Uber rolling out sidewalk delivery robots from new partner
Uber continues expanding its partnerships with robotic delivery technology providers.
The Uber Eats on-demand delivery subsidiary of Uber is launching a pilot of emissions-free Coco sidewalk robots starting in Los Angeles the week of Aug. 26, 2024 and expanding to more cities in the months to come.
"We're excited to welcome Coco's sidewalk robots on Uber Eats to enhance the delivery experience for both our retailers and customers," said Noah Zych, global head of autonomous mobility & delivery at Uber. "As we continue to popularize robot delivery in Los Angeles, our partnership with Coco drives us another step towards a more sustainable and autonomous future for delivery."
Coco has a fleet of more than 1,000 emissions-free robots in live service across a number of Los Angeles neighborhoods and is planning to expand across the United States and Europe with thousands of additional robots in the coming months.
"We're thrilled to partner with Uber to expand our services to even more customers," said Zach Rash, co-founder and CEO of Coco. "With our rapidly growing fleet we're in a unique position to bring unprecedented scale to this partnership and deliver the benefits of sustainable and affordable robot delivery to more customers around the world."
Uber makes inroads in robotic delivery
The new collaboration with Coco is the latest step in Uber’s longstanding push to deliver food via autonomous vehicles. Shake Shack just began rolling out sidewalk delivery robots in partnership with Serve Robotics and Uber Eats, which has been offering Serve's autonomous deliveries in Los Angeles since 2022.
Serve was spun off from Uber as an independent company in 2021. It has an agreement to deploy up to 2,000 delivery robots on the Uber Eats platform across multiple U.S. markets.)
Uber Eats also has an automated delivery partnership with self-driving robot provider Cartken in the Miami and Fairfax, Virginia markets. In September 2022, Uber teamed up with autonomous vehicle manufacturer Nuro to let Uber Eats consumers order meals and goods delivered by Nuro’s zero-occupant autonomous delivery vehicles, which run on public roads and are built specifically to carry food and other goods.
And in May 2022, the company announced it was conducting two separate pilots of two different autonomous delivery vehicles in the Los Angeles area, including Motional all-electric, self-driving Ioniq 5 “robotaxis” as well as Serve Robotics delivery robots.
[READ MORE: Uber launches two autonomous delivery pilots]
Uber Eats leverages Uber’s technology and logistics capabilities to partner with 825,000 retailers in more than 11,000 cities globally, with an average delivery time the company says is under 30 minutes.
