Autonomous Delivery Coming to a Mailbox Near You?

DETROIT – Thirty electrically powered, self-driving mail trucks will soon hit the streets in a Detroit industrial park as part of a pilot program. In addition, around 2,000 Quadrobot U1 four-wheel-drive delivery vans will also start delivering mail for China’s post office in cities on the country’s South Coast, Detroit Free Press reports.

Quadrobot will also test the delivery robots in Birmingham and Royal Oak, Michigan. CEO and chairman Mike Wang will begin putting Quadrobots together for the U.S. tests this year. “I was skeptical at first, but I’m all in,” said John Manoogian, a longtime auto industry executive and adjunct professor of auto design at CCS. “The car business is undergoing dramatic change. This has the opportunity to make a big difference.”

The U1, which was developed in Detroit, operates on 35 kilowatts of power, plenty for a neighborhood delivery robot. The robot is a “last mile” delivery unit, not designed for highway driving. “Last-mile solutions are particularly critical for urban areas, where traffic congestion makes this type of service increasingly time- and labor-intensive,” said Bill Visnic, editorial director of the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Autonomous Vehicle Engineering magazine.

“Last-mile service is expected to be a viable early laboratory for automated vehicles because these trips often will be on defined and easily mapped routes,” Visnic said. “There’s also potential for increased efficiency from autonomous delivery and ride-hailing, which at least in theory might help to reduce congestion.”

The U1 comes with a driver’s seat, controls and a windshield, with the first thousand or so operated by a driver—and overseen by an autonomous system—to gather data about usage. A human driver will do the actual package delivery and pickup, with the U1 trailing autonomously behind it. “It’s like a pet following you,” Wang said.