Convenience store giant 7-Eleven partners with Nuro to pilot a commercial delivery service using autonomous vehicles in the Silicon Valley enclave of Mountain View, California.
The service, which customers will be able to access from December 1st through the 7NOW delivery app from 7-Eleven, will initially use the self-driving Priuses from Nuro. Eventually, the service will use Nuro’s R2 delivery vehicles, which are specifically designed to deliver packages, not people.
7-Eleven has experimented with autonomous delivery in the past. In 2016, the company tested autonomous delivery in Reno, Nevada with drone company Flirtey. This month, the operator of 7-Eleven stores in Korea began testing the use of sidewalk delivery robots developed by local startup Neubility in the southern district of Seoul.
The partnership with Nuro is designed as a commercial service, not a research and development project. A company spokesman described this as a pilot project. This will be a commercial venture, but at least it will be a limited one for now.
Like so many others, Nuro has been navigating the regulatory and technical roadmap for years to go into commercial operation. Nuro had signaled in December 2020 that he plans to begin commercial delivery operations earlier this year after receiving the final required permit to operate commercial driverless services on public roads in California. It seems to have been delayed and is now starting. Nuro was the first company to clear this regulatory hurdle after receiving approval from the state motor vehicle ministry.
Nuro did not name the intended trading partner or the city at the time. It makes sense that Nuro would choose his home area Mountain View as the first starting point.
Nuro has launched numerous other pilots outside of California, including with Kroger and FedEx.
Nuro doesn’t have a specific schedule for when it will go beyond Mountain View or even the first 7-Eleven store to launch it. There are several shops in town, but for now, customers can only have their slurpees and snacks delivered from the 7-Eleven at 1905 Latham St., Mountain View. The intention is to expand to more zip codes in the future, a Nuro spokesman said in an email to TechCrunch.
Nuro didn’t say when it would switch to his R2 bot either, but that’s the ultimate goal. A spokesman said Nuro and 7-Eleven will make the joint decision to introduce R2 into the delivery fleet as soon as possible.
For the time being, customers can order their drinks and snacks via the 7NOW app and have them delivered in Mountain View by an autonomous Nuro vehicle between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. PT at no extra charge. The app sends updates while the order is being processed, similar to how other delivery apps work today. The companies said the orders would arrive in about 30 minutes. Age-restricted items such as alcohol, tobacco and lottery tickets will not be available through autonomous vehicle delivery.
The partnership has been just weeks since Nuro announced it raised $ 600 million in a fundraising round led by new investor Tiger Global Management. The company said the capital will be used to boost commercial operations.
