Uber Technologies
Although Uber Eats and Motional did not state if the collaboration would go to other places as well, Motional President and Chief Executive Karl Iagnemma reported that the partnership would soon foresee "many long-term opportunities for further deploying Motional's technology across the Uber platform."
In spite of the fact that Motional refused to share the specific amount of vehicles that it plans to release for delivery purposes with Uber Eats, the company did reveal that a human safety operator would be there with riders at all times. Motional has stated that it would like to work alongside Uber in order to tell what the riding experience would seem like for consumers, but it would not provide any further information.
"Motional takes an in-depth, research-backed approach to its user experience development," Eryk Nice, Motional's Vice President of technology, said in a statement. "This work is already in process for delivery use cases. Our goal is to enable a seamless and intuitive autonomous experience that is informed by end-user needs and delights the delivery customer. We look forward to continuing to refine the experience as we learn more from the pilot."
The reason that automated delivery vehicles are so effective is mainly because they are able to take roads that could be easier for the system to deal with safely and effectively, even if it may take longer. Automated delivery vehicles are also more convenient because they usually do not require cleaning after deliveries are made.
The collaboration between Motional and Uber Eats will provide more opportunity when it comes to having self-driving delivery services. Although it will currently only be in one location, the user experience may expand to other locations, which will offer much room for growth for the companies, as well as convenience for consumers.
- https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/16/motional-and-uber-partner-to-launch-autonomous-delivery-pilot-in-santa-monica-in-2022/
- https://www.reuters.com/technology/motional-partners-with-uber-provide-autonomous-food-deliveries-california-2021-12-16/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2021/12/16/motional-partners-with-uber-eats-for-santa-monica-automated-deliveries-in-2022/