Ex-Googlers Launch Self-Driving Car Designed for Local Goods Transportation
The Nuro R1 is a unique autonomous vehicle that serves as a mobile logistics platform to deliver groceries, laundry or any other local goods.
How often do we come across a situation when there is some stuff that needs to be picked up from some place in the town, but nobody wants to drive? It sucks to get out of the comfort of the blankets and the coziness of the house just to get some groceries or that suit you left for dry cleaning last week! Nuro has come up with a ground-breaking solution!
The people of California witnessed the launching of an autonomous four-wheeler that kind of looks like a huge cabin on wheels, more of like a robot from the future Star Wars movies.
The vehicle belongs to its innovators, Nuro, which is a startup based in the city. The purpose would be to deliver things like pizzas, groceries, dry cleaning, random stuff that can be ordered online, without the need to keep humans engaged solely for the sake of riding their bikes or other vehicles to the suitable addresses to deliver the contents.
This cabin is designed keeping in mind the height of an SUV but is far more compact in terms of its width. With four different compartments within this electric car, one can use it for four different purposes, such as, refrigeration, cooking, storage of other forms, etc. It is still unknown as to which all companies would be using these delivery boys.
The lightweight (1/3rd of a normal car) is an added advantage along with the fact that the car would run on electricity. The car would be easily able to cover the suburban and urban regions, restricting it from driving on the highways, lest accidents should occur.
In order to work on Nuro, the co-founders left Google’s self-driving car programback in 2016.
Now, instead of waiting for a full two weeks, consumers would be able to get their products delivered within a week, and also quicker depending on their locations.
Legal issues would create a huge ruckus in the launching of this commercial vehicle in California, as the state does not allow vehicles running on the streets without a test driver. But then, since Nuro has no space for passengers, there would be some ray of hope still left for this autonomous little delivery robot. Also, because of its compact size, Nuro can easily navigate streets and avoid pedestrians. And if need be, it could also euthanize itself by crashing into a nearby tree to save humans, in case they come in the way.
Although Nuro doesn’t come with some way to communicate with the pedestrians or other road users, there are various other already patented solutions that provide a digital screen to indicate people the vehicle’s upcoming move. Ferguson, one of the co-founders, says that they would prefer Nuro to have predictable moves in order to let the drivers assume where it would move next, thus avoiding any sort of confusions.
Considering the rate of increase in population, there would be a huge concern of deployment due to automated technology, but Ferguson refuses to believe, and instead says that this would help in creating new markets and opportunities.
Who knows when we would get to see these automated Nuros take over the streets to deliver the things we need! But it sure would be fascinating!
