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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Robomart Partners With PIX Moving to Build Mobile Retail Stores On Top of PIX’s Skateboard Chassis Platform

Robomart, a company that helped pioneer the concept of “store hailing” when it first brought its concept of mobile convenience stores to CES five years ago, announced it had signed a deal with autonomous mobile vehicle platform company PIX Moving to utilize PIX Moving’s expertise in autonomous vehicle production to enhance its fleet of mobile retail stores.

PIX is a logical partner for Robomart on which to build its mobile storefronts because the PIX chassis has always been designed to enable functional and end-use design flexibility from the get-go. PIX’s platform allows for custom-designed compartments, which can be optimized for specific needs like size and temperature control. When we first covered PIX here at the Spoon, one of the concepts the company envisioned was a mobile grocery or convenience store on wheels.

Chinese company Pix Moving is taking a bit of a different approach to autonomous vehicles by removing most of the vehicle. The company is building a self-driving chassis platform on top of which its customers can build whatever they like.

So a big restaurant chain could create a mobile pod of lockers for meal delivery, or a grocery store could create a temperature-controlled store on wheels. A large warehouse-type store could just attach a flat base for moving inventory around.

Since then, PIX has expanded its vision towards building its own branded vehicles and has started calling its chassis a “skateboard chassis platform. ” The Robobus model PIX unveiled a couple of years ago looks pretty similar to the original Robomart concept, so building the next-generation autonomous Robomart models on top of the PIX platform looks like a fairly smooth transition.

I asked Robomart CEO Ali Ahmed how he sees the PIX-powered vehicles being rolled out and integrated with the current Robomart fleets, and he says that the PIX chassis-based Robomarts will start to be phased into the fleet starting near the end of 2025. Spoon readers will know that the current-gen Robomarts – which are called the Oasis model – are retrofitted sprinter vans manned by a driver and that Robomart introduced its autonomous version concept (called the Haven) last summer when it announced a funding round of $2M. Now, we know the PIX platform will power the Robomarts of the future, and, according to Ahmed, it will sit underneath both future smaller stores (like the future autonomous versions of the Oasis) and bigger stores in the Haven.

While it may not be a mobile store, you can see a PIX vehicle in action in the video below.

Meet PIX Moving Space at the park

Exclusive: Yo-Kai Express to Launch Autonomous Mobile Vending Machine and Countertop Cooking Device

Yo-Kai Express, which started out as a robotic ramen vending machine, is expanding its offerings with the addition of a mobile, self-driving version of its vending machine as well as a countertop cooking device in 2021. Yo-Kai Founder and CEO, Andy Lin, announced the new products during my fireside chat with him at the Smart Kitchen Summit: Japan last night.

Both moves are part of a larger push by Yo-Kai to transform itself into a broader platform. As Lin explained it, Yo-Kai is assembling the pieces so users can get hot ramen wherever they are, whenever they want.

One of the ways it is doing this is by making its vending machines mobile. Lin said that Yo-Kai has been working on a self-driving version of its vending machine. This autonomous restaurant-on-wheels will eventually be able to drive on certain routes and stop when hailed by a mobile phone and, Lin said, even when a person waves at it while the machine passes by.

That vision is still a ways off, but Lin said the first version of this self-driving ramen machine is already being manufactured and should debut at the end of Q1 2021/beginning of Q2. Yo-Kai is currently in talks with the Universities of California at Berkeley and Irvine to have the machine operate on those campuses. Going the college route makes sense for Yo-Kai, as it helps the company sidestep some of the regulatory hurdles around self-driving vehicles on public city streets. This is the same path that Starship took with its autonomous delivery robots.

The mobile machine is just one of many different, err, vehicles Yo-Kai is adopting to dispense its hot ramen. The company is also working on machines built for small or large offices, as well as your kitchen counter. Last night, Lin also unveiled Yo-Kai’s new Takumi, a new cooking device for the home.

The Takumi ties in with the line of mail-order ramen that Yo-Kai launched earlier this year. Currently, Yo-Kai mails out ramen kits that you have to assemble; they take about 15 minutes to fully prepare. In its next iteration, the ramen will be made, frozen and shipped to you in a single-serve container. Users will put the container into the Takumi, which uses steam to reconstitute and heat the ramen in just a few minutes.

In addition to offering more ways to get ramen, Yo-Kai is also opening up its platform to offer customers ramen from different restaurants. Yo-Kai is currently in talks to co-brand and sell meals from well-known ramen houses in Japan. Yo-Kai will work with these restaurants to recreate thos ramen restaurant recipes in Yo-Kai kitchens. Those meal will then be sold via branded ramen machines, and they will also be sold by mail order to consumers, who can cook it in their Takumi.

We’ve seen this type of co-branding elsewhere with automated vending services. Blendid, which makes a smoothie making robot, recently announced a co-branding deal with Jamba, and Chowbotics partnered with Saladworks on a salad making robot. Co-branding will likely be the main strategy for vending services going forward, as it leverages the brand recognition of a well-known restaurant, rather than trying to build up the robot company’s brand.

As Lin explained to me when I first met him last year, in Japanese folklore, Yo-Kais are ghosts that can appear anywhere at any time. With its forthcoming moves, Yo-Kai Express’ ramen will be doing much the same thing.

AutoX Accelerates Autonomous Grocery Delivery with New California Pilot Program

Self-driving car startup AutoX announced today that it launched its first pilot of autonomous grocery delivery in San Jose, CA (h/t TechCrunch). AutoX’s move follows Kroger’s self-driving grocery delivery pilot launch in Phoenix earlier this month, signaling that autonomous grocery delivery might be commonplace before we know it.

For its San Jose pilot, AutoX partnered with fellow Bay Area companies GrubMarket, which is a B2B supplier of produce, and DeMartini Orchard, a Los Altos-based produce market. For now, AutoX’s grocery delivery is open to customers in geo-fenced areas of San Jose, and will be gradually expanding “every few weeks.”

What makes AutoX’s delivery program a little different from other grocery home delivery coming to market is that you can order groceries for delivery ahead of time and purchase items that are stocked inside the car. That is: you can place an advance order for groceries through the AutoX app for next-day delivery, or you can have the car come to your house where you can choose from a selection of goods that are inside the car and pay for them on the spot. The specifics of payment for in-car goods, such as whether cars are equipped with Amazon Go-like functionality or use some system of sensors, is unclear from the reporting.

Image via Auto X

Additionally, it looks as though AutoX’s deliveries will truly be human-free. In the announcement blog post, AutoX wrote: “The groceries will be well-preserved in a temperature-controlled environment throughout their driverless ride over.” So there won’t be anyone to gripe at if your order’s wrong.

AutoX’s news comes on the same day that Toyota invested $500 million in Uber as part of a larger agreement between the two companies to work on driverless car technology. While that deal didn’t address food delivery via something like the fast-growing Uber Eats specifically, Toyota did unveil its “e-Palette” line of autonomous delivery vehicles at CES earlier this year. So this new investment could come with its own autonomous food delivery component.

The entire autonomous driving space is driving ahead so quickly that pretty soon I’m going to run out of car-related puns. As noted earlier, Kroger has started its self-driving grocer delivery pilot in Arizona. And elsewhere at CES this year, Ford announced a deal with Postmates for self-driving food delivery.

Founded in 2016, AutoX has offices in San Jose and China, and according to TechCrunch, the company has raised $43 million from strategic investors. If you’re in the right area in San Jose, snap and share with us a pic of the robot car. Even better, order some groceries and let us know how it goes.