Tortoise‘s sidewalk delivery robots are making their way to Dallas, Texas, thanks to a new pilot program with Vroom Delivery and Urban Value Corner Store announced today. Launching in the coming months, the new service will use Tortoise’s teleoperated robots to deliver goods like milk and eggs, as well as snacks and alcohol.
Tortoise is different other players in the robot delivery space like Starship and Kiwibot. Tortoise’s robot is much bigger than those cooler-sized robots and able to carry 100 pounds of goods. Tortoise’s robots are also fully driven by remote human operators, as the company chose to forego the autonomous driving option in order to sidestep local regulatory issues around self-driving vehicles to get to market faster.
Another benefit of having human operators could be when it comes to robotic beer and alcohol delivery. Tortoise’s hefty robots are actually perfect for carrying beverages like cases of beer typically purchased at a convenience store. As Tortoise Co-Founder and President Dmitry Shevelenko explained to me by phone this morning, while details and regulations still need to be worked out, there is a scenario in which the human operator of the Tortoise robot could assist in providing ID verification on age restricted purchases.
Contactless delivery from robots like Tortoise could find increased interest as the COVID-19 Delta variants keep the pandemic top of mind here in the U.S. Though online grocery shopping, which requires curbside pickup or delivery, has come down from its record highs during the summer of last year, it is still much higher than pre-pandemic levels. Experts from Brick Meets Click anticipate that many consumers will stick with their new grocery e-commerce habits.
This deal with Vroom and Urban Value marks another publicly announced delivery deal this year for Tortoise. In March of this year, Albertsons said it would use Tortoise robots for grocery delivery at two Northern California Safeway locations.
According to the press announcement, Urban Value will launch its first Tortoise delivery location from its downtown Dallas location. Customers can use Vroom’s e-commerce platform to place their order for robot delivery from Urban Value. Vroom said that it is making Tortoise deliveries available to other convenience stores across the country.
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