Uber Eats patrons in Jersey City can now receive their orders via Avride’s autonomous delivery robots.
The rolling out of this new service this week is Uber’s latest venture into the autonomous vehicle space, signaling a growing affiliation with Avride. It’s worth noting that Uber’s app already facilitates AV operations in 11 cities with six partners, including Cartken, Coco, Nuro, and Serve Robotics. The company also has plans to introduce Waymo’s robotaxis on its platform in Austin and Atlanta by early 2025.
Uber first made known its collaboration with Avride in October 2024, with the objective of incorporating both the firm’s delivery bots and self-driving cars onto the Uber platform. Since then, robotic deliveries have been launched in Austin and Dallas.
There are also plans to roll out Avride’s autonomous cars in Dallas this year, marking Avride’s initial robotaxi deployment in the U.S. Avride is a spinoff from Yandex, a Russian tech corporation that separated its businesses last year following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Recently, Avride announced a partnership with Grubhub, aiming to bring delivery robots to university campuses across the U.S., starting with 100 bots at Ohio State University.
The choice of Jersey City for the launch is intriguing, given the potential challenges posed by the February weather conditions, including snow, rain, and freezing temperatures, which could potentially hinder the performance of the delivery bots.
Despite these potential obstacles, Avride asserts that its bots can function effectively in the snow and under moderate precipitation. A company spokesperson also stated that while the bots can cover up to 5 miles per hour and have a range of 31 miles on a single charge, they are ideally suited for deliveries within a range of one to two miles.
Avride’s bots will operate within a square mile of downtown Jersey City, covering areas from Hamilton Park to Historic Downtown to the Waterfront, with plans for future expansion. The exact number of bots that will be deployed in Jersey City at launch was not disclosed by Avride.
A select number of restaurants, including Michelin rated Jiangnan, Rumi Turkish Grill, and Gulp, will participate in this service. When ordering through the Uber Eats app, customers will have the option of having their meals delivered either by a traditional courier or an Avride robot.
Customers will be able to monitor the progress of the bot via the Uber Eats app. When the bot arrives, customers will receive a notification, and they can use the app to unlock the bot and retrieve their food.
In Uber’s fourth-quarter earnings report last week, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi underscored that 2024 was a pivotal year for the AV industry, which he believes presents a trillion-dollar opportunity in the U.S.
Despite his optimism, Khosrowshahi cautioned that the commercialization of AV technology will take some time due to various factors. These include the high costs of equipping vehicles with sensor suits, a fragmented regulatory landscape, seasonal demand variations, and the requirement to achieve unprecedented levels of safety.
