Looking at the photos: the vehicle itself is tiny, as is the cargo space for groceries. There are two cargo areas with separate doors, so presumably each customer's delivery could have an isolated cargo space.
I could imagine this concept scaled up to van size or even truck size, integrated with something like a refrigerated amazon locker. Exciting stuff!
What if cars were mini maglev trains (or pods), hovering above buried tracks on the road and can 'convert' into a car for last-mile delivery, and parking.
Then you'd still have the asphalt etc, but hovering over it - you degrade it less than actually driving on it. In this situation you could order up any size vehicle you need from 2 seater to 20 seater.
I like the concept car of Nuro, looks like a moving shelf, maybe could be possible to scale that to a bigger size. Where each customer, can pickup his groceries.
random thought: an autonomous milk car with fresh diary from your local farm
Having different sized cars on demand will be amazing. Going to work? 1 seat please. Going to the beach with the family? 7 seat + luggage area please. Going to town with mates? 12 seats. Going surfing with a friend? 2 seats, luggage area, kitchenette, changing area + wet storage area.
I nerds who live in a city and don't really use cars other than to move them and a little shopping around forget about farmers, post men, telecom engineers, water engineers... if I get to a job and need some tools I can get them delivered from the depot while I work on something else! If I need a mini-digger I can order it and get it. Or if I need to take a fallen tree to the dump - easy. All these things I do in my little car at the moment, I have to compromise.
Like the aircraft carrier and aircraft, you could have a delivery vehicle that acted as a quadracopter platform to take the item from van to house over shorter distances.
IMO a slim “car” that can seat two people (F14 style) that’s a bit wider than a motorcycle (but can lane split easily) and hold a bit of cargo would be awesome.
It can go max 40mph and be awesome for city dwellers and delivery drivers.
Yet we have a bunch of general attributes we expect when we say "car". Maybe "she's smart" is rather like "she has a car". You don't know whether it's a Porsche or a Truck, gas or electric, but you'll generally rely on her being able to cover larger distances than on foot, and at higher speeds, while also hauling some reasonable amount of luggage.
I doubt it. Real people, especially parents with children, like to be able to store stuff in their cars. They don't want to deal with waiting, or dirty cars used by random other people.
At least the Uber-style infrastructure doesn't require oversizing everything. Even if my car is used 90% of the time for commuting by myself, it has to be big enough for the other 10% of the time when I'm taking the family and our luggage.
It's not a terrible idea for a lot of stuff. It's much more economical to add many features on all vehicles than to package them. Then you can individual menu out the items to the people who want them.
The car as a service option won't be the solution for most families, because they have a lot of nonhuman cargo they need to store in their car: strollers, diaper bags, sporting equipment, etc.
This is probably one of my favorite things about owning a car, and why I have a sedan vs. a hatchback. Being able to store emergency supplies (couple cases of water, a backpack, ...), personal tech supplies (spare mbp charger, cable toolkit, etc.) in my car makes life much easier. Realistically this is 100-200 pounds of stuff, and I wouldn't want to have to carry it to/from a car myself every time I got a robot car.
You would just get a van or truck on demand. That's a huge benefit of on demand, self-driving cars - instead of having one car you try to fit into your every need, you get what you need and when you need it. So, something tiny if it's just you and your partner going to dinner. Or a van if you're taking kids and friends to an event. Or a truck if you have to move a sofa.
I have a sedan. 90% of the time it's just me in the car. Insane.
The basket of goods approach always feels a bit off to me wrt capabilities, however I haven’t seen a compelling alternative.
Yes the sedan I have now also gets me from point a to b with seating for 5 as it did in 1970 but the safety, efficiency, capabilities are all much more advanced.
Less apples to apples and more red delicious to cosmic crisp.
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