Uber, as a veteran transport service company, and Uber Technologies, as a technology division in its innovation area, have just announced long-term partnership with Nurothe developer of electric and autonomous vehicles. This project will provide the company with new models for Uber Eats food delivery and home orders, without the need for a driver or person on board. The agreement between both companies will start this fall and will have an initial duration of 10 years. The first units will be operational in Houston (Texas) and Mountain View (California), although it is expected that the service will also arrive in Arizona soon.
The project directly frames fully autonomous vehicles for home delivery. These are specially designed for circulation on public roads and for the transport of food and other sensitive products. Once the pilot test is completed in the two areas mentioned above, the company hopes to expand its service to the entire metropolitan area of the Bay of California.
Both companies hope that this association will lead to a potential growth in the use of electric and autonomous vehicles for last-mile delivery of food or other products. With this, they open the door to this fast delivery technology to merchants, restaurants and stores of all sizes to strengthen local commerce.
Nuro is currently conducting operations with autonomous vehicles in Arizona, California and Texas, United States. This company has been the first to obtain permission to deploy autonomous vehicles in California; Currently there are three companies that already hold such a permit. The vehicles developed by Nuro have the highest technology in the sector in terms of detection sensors, radars and other elements for the circulatory safety of its models on public roads. In parallel, being fully electric models also avoid the emission of carbon gases into the environment.
Uber Eats will not be the first service to make use of Nuro vehicles, as Domino’s Pizza already began testing last April 2021. The company’s model is the Nuro R2, a vehicle that was presented at the beginning of this same year and that has all the elements to transport food, whether hot or cold, through temperature sensors located in its two cargo chambers, which have a joint storage capacity of 765 liters.
The Nuro R2 presents an appearance with rounded lines and circular headlights with LED technology. On the roof there is a support where the proximity sensors, radars, LiDAR and cameras are located. Thanks to this, the vehicle creates a three-dimensional digital image around the model. The maximum speed of this is 72 kilometers per hour.
