The inherent problem there is the edges, most food delivery isn't the trip, it's the person getting out of the vehicle and putting it on your doorstep or going through the building. Zipline and their droneports for buildings seem to have the better solution, at least until waymo has some sort of legged robot that can bring the bag the last meter(s)

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kylehotchkiss 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think the frustration with tips is so prevalent that the advertising could just be "Skip the tip, simply walk to the street to pick up your order!"

Would work great in suburbs where a robot car could pull in front of home for a minute or two, your food will be bid to another customer if you don't pick it up in 5 minutes. maybe the little robots in NYC are better.

	▲	WorldPeas 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I would argue that the sidewalk robots are too hard to coordinate and not strong enough to hold up against crime, the solution is somewhat closer to my other comment below, a vehicle with maybe 4 or 8 food cells that can fill up at various locations then make its journey around the city. At that point the problem would be idle timeouts and how to handle disgruntled consumers that lost their window for pickup

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rkomorn 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Aren't the "first meters" also pretty problematic? Are Waymos going to double park in front of a restaurant waiting for someone to come out and put the right order in the right vehicle?

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WorldPeas 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's easier to do with training, and the business is usually more willing than a consumer as it increases their business. Anecdotally, see how many of them (at least locally to myself) have adopted the doordash/grubhub tablets in their kitchen ordering system. I imagine it would be a co-packing situation with lockers on wheels similar to the vehicle KFC uses in China: https://www.mashed.com/284555/the-futuristic-way-kfc-is-sell...

Uber's NURO seems to be developing a vehicle with a similar form factor as seen on this page: https://www.nuro.ai/first-responders

EDIT: see comment below, uber does not own NURO

	▲	AlotOfReading 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nuro is an independent company from Uber, the latter just has a partnership with and some investment in the former. Uber has similar relationships with more than half the industry at this point.
	▲	rkomorn 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		My anecdotal evidence also has so many incorrect orders that I'm a wee bit less optimistic than you about restaurant-side human handling of the first meters. :)

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Dylan16807 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

A lot of restaurants already have dedicated parking spots where they'll bring the food out.

	▲	rkomorn 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I feel like that's already quite special-case-y. Certainly wouldn't apply to anywhere near where I currently live (then again, neither does Waymo).