After launching with more than 600 participating merchants in Los Angeles and Chicago earlier this year, DoorDash is bringing its robot delivery service to Miami. The company continues to work with Cocoa Robotics as part of its effort toward a “multi-modal system” that allows it to make human, robot, and drone deliveries at scale.
Along with adding a third city to the initiative, DoorDash now also takes orders for groceries and household items from its delivery-only convenience store chain, DashMart. This means customers will receive robot deliveries from national grocers and retailers as well as restaurants.
DoorDash has a dedicated robotics and automation division called DoorDash Labs, which is focused on creating new partnerships that allow it to meet increased demand with more environmentally friendly methods of delivery. Earlier this year it began operations with Wing in Charlotte, and along with using Coco’s self-driving robot, DoorDash recently developed its own in-house delivery robot called Dot.
Certainly more handsome than its Coco colleague, Dot is designed for quick neighborhood trips and is capable of navigating streets, as well as bike lanes and sidewalks. Dot is currently being piloted in Arizona, and is expected to accomplish affordable delivery when launched more widely, with DoorDash replacing its human employees, ensuring that the robot will complement rather than replace them.
With fully autonomous technology still in its infancy, low-risk hyper-local delivery is being explored by many food delivery companies that have traditionally relied on gig workers to fulfill orders. Earlier this year, GrubHub partnered with autonomous robot delivery company Everide to expand its existing robot delivery offering to college campuses, including Ohio State University.