Little robot cars to deliver pizza, groceries, medicine as a paid service in California

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Your groceries, pizza, and medicine can now be delivered via robotic vehicles if you live in California, as Nuro received the state's first commercial permit for autonomous delivery.

San Francisco and Silicon Valley's streets have been bustling with self-driving vehicles from an array of companies for years. But those vehicles have only been issued permits for testing on public roads. Now, the robotics-startup Nuro has an official stamp of approval to start its paid service, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

In 2017, California had granted Nuro approval to test its vehicles with safety drivers inside. In April 2020, it said the company could begin testing without drivers.

It'll begin service with modified Prius vehicles set in fully autonomous mode, then roll out its fleet of R2 vehicles, which don't have driver's seats, said David Estrada, chief legal and policy officer, in a blog post. Nuro, in early 2020 got US government permission to ditch the mirrors on its R2 fleet because, well, they don't have seats or a steering wheel.

"R2 was purposefully engineered for safety, with a design that prioritizes what's outside - the people with whom we share the roads - over what's inside," Estrada said. It has a top speed of 35 mph and a small four-foot frame. It operates with thermal imaging, radar, and 360-degree cameras, to drive on the public road.

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