Cleveron
The car has a robotic arm.
- The company behind Walmart's pickup towers has developed a self-driving car that delivers packages to homes and businesses.
- The car uses a robotic arm to place the packages in pickup lockers outside homes and businesses. Eventually, it will be able to deliver to mailboxes and pickup towers as well.
- Autonomous delivery could be a boon for retailers, which have seen shipping costs balloon in recent years.
The company behind Walmart's pickup towers has developed a self-driving car that could upend the last-mile delivery industry.
The car, called Lotte, is a robotic courier. It autonomously transports packages to homes and businesses and uses a robotic arm to place the packages in a pickup locker. Eventually, it will be able to deliver packages to mailboxes and pickup towers as well.
The Lotte, designed by Estonia-based technology firm Cleveron, is among the only self-driving delivery vehicles that can complete deliveries without any human intervention.
Cleveron
The Lotte robotic courier places a package inside a pickup locker.
"Since the robot courier will replace human labor, which makes the last mile delivery cheaper," said Cleveron CEO Arno Kutt. "This in turn helps e-commerce grow even more - it will be less expensive (we eliminate labor costs) and extremely convenient (the parcels are waiting for you safely in your own parcel locker)."
A 2016 McKinsey study estimated that autonomous vehicles, including drones, would account for about 80% of all consumer parcel deliveries during the next 10 years.
And according to a new study from the consulting firm KPMG, approximately one million autonomous delivery robots could be on the streets by 2040.
Cleveron
Autonomous delivery could be a boon for retailers, which have seen shipping costs balloon in recent years. Amazon, for example, saw its shipping costs double between 2015 and 2017 to $21.7 billion.
Ford and Walmart recently partnered to begin testing the delivery of goods using autonomous vehicles in Florida.
Kroger has also been testing the delivery of groceries in driverless cars.
