Uber and Coco have formed a strategic partnership to deploy Coco’s fleet of more than 1,000 sidewalk robots for food delivery on the Uber Eats platform. The collaboration launches in Los Angeles this week, with plans to expand to more cities in the coming months. Coco’s existing partnerships with hundreds of Los Angeles merchants will be integrated into the Uber Eats service.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Uber to expand our services to even more customers,” said Zach Rash, cofounder and CEO of Coco. “With our rapidly growing fleet, we’re in a unique position to bring unprecedented scale to this partnership and deliver the benefits of sustainable and affordable robot delivery to more customers around the world.”
Coco’s robots currently operate in neighborhoods across Los Angeles County, including Santa Monica, Venice, West LA, Westwood, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Downtown LA, Koreatown and University Park. The company plans to expand across the U.S. and Europe with thousands of additional robots in the coming months.
Founded in 2020, Coco is the world’s largest urban robot delivery platform and has completed over 300,000 zero-emission deliveries in 30 minutes or less.
Delivery robots do not belong on the sidewalks, no more than rental scooters. I have video of a robot stopped in oncoming traffic. One mangled robot was found on the sidewalk after it was hit by a car. They are practically useless and a danger to pedestrians particularly people with baby strollers, walkers or wheelchair. They are also a traffic hazard. City Council needs to ban them.
The real threat to pedestrians is posed by the internal combustion cars & trucks with the bots & E-scooters being the victims as well. Let’s ban the private internal combustion cars & trucks, promote the bots & E-scooters, making the Great City of West Hollywood a car-free city❗
Relax citizens, this is only the beginning. The Environmentally friendly ♻ autonomous bot delivery drones are your friends. The flying autonomous delivery drones are well on the way next ready to serve your every need or want and, will enable the Great City of West Hollywood to become a technologically advanced car free city. The same flying drone technology also promises heavy transport and, automated flying cars on AI managed virtual skyways.
I just gave a talk on Smart Cities and 15-minute Cities. In summary: the UN Sustainable Development Goals aren’t really about sustainability… but something else entirely.
Unfortunately, people will cheer this on as progress. Those that recognize the dangers coming down the pike are rarely taken seriously by the masses. Whitney Webb’s research is a good starting point, for those inclined.
YES I did emphasize the positive aspects of the technology but, am completely of many dangers that need attention. YES if environmental concerns are NOT addressed early on in design & implemented, developers go for quick profits over reducing environmental impact.
Military 👹 & law enforcement 🐷 applications need to be watched for Civil Rights/Liberties violations. Also Public & Low Income Housing needs to be implemented as a condition for building as was done in Dubai. YES I know Whitney Webb from MintPress News ❗
very bad news for pedestrians, particularly older adults, and people with disabilities!!
Worse news for human delivery people.
That’s what I was thinking. It’s just a way for greedy Uber to take jobs away from actual people and yet the prices won’t drop and they keep the money for themselves. Is that really progress?
Actually robotics tends to create far more jobs than they replace. The current bots are a long way from being self maintaining and cleaning. Robots are Taking Some Jobs, But Creating Real Careers ❗
The “very bad news for pedestrians, particularly older adults, and people with disabilities” comes in the form of the automobile & trucks which is the number source of accidental injury and death for that group of people. Autonomous delivery and care bots have the promise of offering considerable assistance for those in need. Ban the cars, promote the bots❗
They are much slower than an actual human I’ve found. Maybe if you are ordering something from a block away in which case perhaps a walk is in order (unless you are sick or otherwise incapacitated of course)
Pedestrian safety hazards, cross walk safety hazards, vehicular hazard and takes away jobs from people.
actually, each robot is controlled by a person remotely.
Nah. Each robot is not controlled by one person. That doesn’t even make sense logically, logistically, or economically.
Its economical; the person controlling it lives in North Korea.
Now the Coco website did mention “real-time tracking” and the bots autonomous capabilities but, nothing about North Korea. The partnership is beginning in Los Angeles with plans to expand to additional cities in the second half of 2024 but, nothing about North Korea. Are you putting out misinformation❓
More likely India or Philippines.
A-lot’s happened in sensors, robotics and, AI.