DoorDash customers in Phoenix may soon have their delivery order brought to them by an autonomous Waymo vehicle. The two companies announced a partnership today that will bring Waymo’s driverless Jaguar SUVs into the DoorDash delivery fleet.
But Waymo’s autonomous vehicles are a different breed of robot. For one, they operate on the road, not the sidewalk, and theoretically that means they could bring an order to a customer faster than a sidewalk robot (traffic notwithstanding).
Waymo will start out by delivering orders from DoorDash’s DashMart convenience, grocery, and retail store in Phoenix, with plans to add more restaurants, retail, and grocery stores over time. DoorDash customers who order items from DashMart may be matched with a Waymo vehicle as their delivery vehicle. Once it arrives, customers can use their DoorDash app to unlock the vehicle’s trunk to retrieve their order.
It remains to be seen how customers will react. No driver means no one to ring your doorbell or trudge up four flights of stairs to hand over your pad thai. All communication about the order will happen through the app. Customers may or may not appreciate having to walk down to the street to retrieve their orders. Other companies have tried this model, and it’s been a mixed bag.
This won’t be the first time that an autonomous Waymo vehicle brought someone their dinner. The company teamed up with Uber Eats last year, also in Phoenix, though that partnership has since concluded.
Of course, Waymo once aspired to launch its own delivery business. The company made deals with UPS, Wayfair, JB Hunt, and Uber in the hopes of applying its autonomous driving technology to world of last mile delivery and long-haul trucking. But Waymo eventually hit the brakes on its delivery business in order to focus its resources on its robotaxis.
