7‑Eleven is testing autonomous vehicle delivery through a partnership with Nuro. The project will take place in California. It will mark the first autonomous deliveries have taken place in the state.
Customers can order items through an app. and have the autonomous vehicle deliver the products.
“7‑Eleven has owned and defined convenience since 1927,” said Raghu Mahadevan, 7‑Eleven chief digital officer. “Our first foray into autonomous delivery was in 2016 when 7‑Eleven became the first retailer in the U.S. to make a drone delivery to a customer’s house. Since then, we haven’t stopped looking for ways to redefine convenience for our customers inside and outside the four walls of our stores. Fast forward to 2021, and we are pushing the boundaries of innovation even further to provide customers with the first commercial autonomous delivery service in California. I can’t wait to see where we go from here.”
Nuro will begin this delivery service with its autonomous Priuses and later introduce R2 bots, the company’s autonomous robots that are custom-built to transport products and goods without any occupants in the vehicle. Nuro became the first autonomous vehicle company to receive a deployment permit from the California DMV in December, 2020, enabling the launch of this inaugural commercial delivery service in the state in collaboration with 7‑Eleven.
“Residents in the state of California – a major hub of innovation – have never been able to experience the commercial delivery of goods by an autonomous vehicle. Nuro is teaming up with 7‑Eleven to change that,” said Jiajun Zhu, Nuro CEO and co-founder. “We’ve always wanted to bring Nuro’s autonomous delivery to our local community and to our neighbors. We couldn’t be more excited to do this with an iconic neighborhood store like 7‑Eleven in our hometown, Mountain View.”
