Last February, Santa Monica passed a rule that said all deliveries within it need to have zero emissions. Basically, this means that food needs to be delivered by someone on a bike, in an electric vehicle or…a robot.
It looks like the robots may be winning.
According to this dot.LA piece, delivery bots from a few different companies are now buzzing around the sidewalks, one of them being the Santa Monica-based Coco.
Launched in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has expanded operations from one Santa Monica neighborhood to six other neighborhoods in little over a year. In February, the company rolled out their robots in San Pedro, working with Councilman and mayoral hopeful Joe Busciano and the Chamber of Commerce. Several local restaurants including San Pedro Brewing Co. and Whale & Ale signed on.
California often leads when it comes to regulations, and Santa Monica’s new zero-emission zone is the country’s first. I suspect that we’ll probably see other California cities follow suit and, if they do, I expect we’ll see more sidewalk robots shuttling meals to customers soon after.
Could other cities outside of California follow suit? I think they will, especially as cities become increasingly crowded with traffic from customers ordering food.
For now, though, we’ll keep an eye on how many more robots pop on the sunny sidewalks of Santa Monica.
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