Doordash unveils autonomous robots built to deliver your food

On Tuesday, Doordash unveiled the dots. It is a small robot that can autonomously drive roads, bike lanes and sidewalks, capable of delivering food and small packages at speeds up to 20 mph. Dot is designed to look friendly and even cartoonish. Painted bright red, its large LED eyes and mouth open to reveal where to hold your food, but claims it’s a bit creepy.

Doordash says it has already tested the robots along with early access partners in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and plans to make it available to 1.6 million residents in the area by the end of 2025.

It may sound strange for food delivery apps like Doordash to compete with trillion dollar companies such as Google and Tesla on self-driving car (AV) technology. In cities across San Francisco, Austin and the nation, calling Robotakshi is already common for many residents. Doordash argues that similar calculations are coming to the food delivery space and that the size and design of the Dot are important.

This little, cute (terrifying?) robot has a high interest. Countless startups have been in flames in AV space, with some facing fines and fines when the machine causes harm. Robotaxis has also become a symbol of Silicon Valley’s wider automation push and a target for the rage of the people. Waymos is being destroyed in the city streets, and it’s easy to imagine the dot becoming the next symbol of that tension.

On Monday at the company’s San Francisco headquarters, Doordash co-founder Stanley Tang told reporters that autonomous delivery in suburbs and cities could become a massive market. Tan said the key to the delivery robot refers to navigating “first and last 10 feet” and picking up and dropping the delivery. Sidewalk robots, such as those developed by companies like Serve Robots, address this challenge of negotiating tight spaces, but cannot drive at high speeds like roads or DOT cans.

“We don’t always need a full-size car to deliver tubes of toothpaste or diaper packs,” Tang says. “The dots are dedicated to the millions of delivery we promote every day. It’s fast enough to maintain the quality of the food, small enough to navigate entrances and driveways.

The DOT has four wheels, less than 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. It is about one tenth of the size of a car and weighs 350 pounds. Please press the button for what can only be called a dot “mouth.” It reveals enough cargo space to fit six pizza boxes or up to 30 pounds of food. There are various inserts, such as cup holders and coolers, that merchants can place within the dots to meet their needs.

There are also speakers that can emit robotic voices on top of the vehicle to display text. Doordash says the DOT even has a microphone. This can one day be used to promote an AI-driven conversation between customers and DOT.

Each unit runs on a replaceable battery that can be charged individually. The company says it is an important design feature that will help you get through storage and charge your vehicle.

For navigation, DOT uses eight external cameras along with four radars and three LIDAR sensors to detect obstacles. Doordash says the camera is connected to a real-time AI model that combines deep learning and search-based algorithms to find the best path to your customers.

The company has built the past seven years towards DOT. In 2019, Doordash acquired AV startup Scotty Labs and became co-founder of AV mapping startup LVL 5.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Rege said that early conversations with lawmakers about Doordash’s DOT were positive. He says city and state officials have promoted delivery of small vehicles as a way to reduce traffic congestion.

Human delivery workers are not very enthusiastic. In a press release, Doordash says humans still meet most of their daily orders, but automation can “focus more on valuable orders that require human judgment and care.”

Another hurdle for DOT is safety. Rege said Dot is trained to be maintained by bicycles and pedestrians, but is large enough to appear to drivers.

If the dot gets into trouble on the road, Rege says the dot cannot be remotely manipulated by humans. Doordash believes teleo manipulation is not the correct approach for DOT, and instead trains them to simply wait and pull onto the side of the road (though it’s easier than you might say). Rege said field operators will be dispatched to dot positions in serious circumstances.

In Phoenix, Doordash created an ecosystem that supports a fleet of small dots. A warehouse where robots are stored, a charging station for filling batteries, and a field operator who cleans and rescues them. Rege refused to disclose personnel or costs for this ecosystem.

Just as people have destroyed Waymos, it seems likely that people will try to ruin the dot. Doordash says he included the camera within the dot’s cargo space to prevent little humans from climbing inside. Also, DOT is light enough for a few people to flip, but Rege says field operators can get them upright if that happens.

DOT may be playful, but it’s a serious and massive effort for Doordash. The company will want to defeat Uber and Instacart on its self-driving vehicles and bring it to the market. DOT can reconstruct Doordash’s position in the delivery market, but it can also introduce a wide range of new challenges.