Modern technology has gifted us the idea of flying cars and flying taxies. Now it's time to witness self-driving delivery services, which would make the e-commerce sector fast-paced and consumer-friendly.
Senior vice president of Renault-Nissan's light commercial vehicle business, Ashwani Gupta believes that the revolution in the commercial vehicle will come first and then the passenger cars.
"The moment business people start believing this is going to generate additional revenue and that this is going to be more efficient, then I think they'll start working on it," Ashwani said as quoted by Fortune.
These days, instead of going to shopping malls, people prefer online shopping. Amazon.com, one of the favourite e-commerce centre has delivered more than five billion items to its prime members in 2017. Experts have claimed that tech-driven delivery process would reduce the shipping cost further.
Asutosh Padhi, a McKinsey & Co. senior partner said that consumers are interested in autonomous goods delivery and this new delivery process will change "consumer expectations in a fundamental way."
Since the driverless delivery process will be available 24/7, even at night, the delivery process will be swifter due to less traffic on the road.
How does it work?
When you order an item online, just set a date and time duration to receive the parcel at your home or office. When the package reaches the nearest destination, you will get a notification, to let you know that the parcel has arrived that you can collect from a locked compartment in the vehicle. All you have to do is unlock it by scanning a barcode, texted to your phone or punch the code on the touchpad of the vehicle.
The new delivery system also helps to reduce the time since the robotic delivery system could cut down two-day delivery in just two hours, which is not possible for any human-dependant delivery.
Daniel Laury, the chief executive officer of a Silicon Valley startup called Udelv, that has been demonstrating driverless delivery of groceries since January, thinks that the business potential is enormous in this model.
While the former Google self-driving car project, Waymo, has begun testing in Atlanta, Ford started a pilot project in Miami to understand how self-driving vehicles could deliver pizza groceries and other goods on the doorsteps of the customers.
Even Toyota Motor Corp. has presented a concept in January 2018 for an autonomous vehicle, which will be used as a taxi and parcel delivery car. In September, Renault-Nissan will unveil a driverless robotic delivery at the Hanover Motor Show.
Danny Shapiro, senior director of the automotive business at chip maker Nvidia Corp. said, "The Amazon effect has really changed how commerce is done. It has caused a huge growth in the number of packages being delivered, which is why we'll ultimately move toward a driverless delivery system."
However, Jim Farley, Ford's president of global markets believes that there are many, who want to experience the robotic-delivery process out of curiosity.
Job Cuts?
Even though such technology helps in saving time, it would certainly affect many jobs, especially the requirement for delivery boys, a basic job for many people at the entry level. If companies like Germany's Daimler AG and Tesla Inc. focus on the elimination of human drivers that account for as much as 70 percent of the cost of hauling goods, the future of jobs will bother many families .
No wonder, experts like Michio Kaku believe that such dependency on automation is more harmful to mankind than contacting aliens. Even Stephen Hawking, who helped to shape the modern cosmology had warned humans about the dangers of AI technology.
