Uber will use Nuro's autonomous delivery vehicles to deliver food to its Eats customers, under a 10-year agreement, starting in Houston and Mountain View, CA. Cosimo Leipold, head of partnerships at Nuro, joined Cheddar News to discuss the new partnership.

Uber, Nuro Team Up on Autonomous Food Deliveries 

ordering food delivery is about to get much more futuristic Uber partnering with autonomous vehicle company in Euro to use its self driving electric vehicles for food deliveries in the US while narrows vehicles can run on public roads were built specifically to carry food and other goods and the new service will be available to Uber eats customers in Houston texas and Mountain view California with plans to expand to other areas in the future. So joining me now is Cosmo Leopold head of partnerships in Euro. Cosimo, thank you so much for coming on the show. Give me some more details about this major partnership with Uber and how you see it bringing food delivery into the future. Yeah, happy to look. We're really excited about this opportunity with Uber. It's a 10 year deal. It's significant for both of our organizations and we see it as an opportunity to tap into their massive marketplace is one of the global leaders and food delivery and I think for Uber it's an opportunity to bring our technology, namely the vehicle you see now on the screen into their marketplace providing services not just for big companies, but for Mom and Pops as well who historically we haven't been able to service yet. And so we're really excited about what that's gonna look like. As you mentioned, we're gonna start in Mountain View and we're in Houston and we're gonna be doing deliveries for you for each and relatively soon, You know, stay tuned, we'll sell more soon and then beyond that we're gonna be expanding hopefully beyond those two markets in the coming years and until the tens of thousands of vehicles over the next decade. So we're really excited about what's coming. We're showing some really great imagery, Cosmo of the neuro vehicle. I want you to talk to me more about how the technology behind this works and how reliable it is. Yeah. You know, one of the things you just showed that I think is really cool is we've taken some innovations that that we all already know like airbags and we've literally put them on the inside, turn them inside out and put them on the outside of the vehicle and we've done that to create safety for what's on the outside of the vehicle as opposed to what's on the inside of the vehicle. So padesh, cyclists and everything else and obviously the vehicle has cameras and lidar radar, all these other sensors and it's constantly computing what's happening around it and trying to understand where am I going to be and everything else going to be seconds from now? And that's fundamentally how the technology sort of manages in this very complex environment. So at these neuro vehicles, Cosmo, are they going to be on the road in the same way that cars are, are they meant for the sidewalks? How do these basically weave into the fabric of our everyday lives? Well, they already are on roads and this is something we're super proud of. We have these vehicles on road today in multiple states, in fact, I believe we're the only company to have done this now fully autonomously with no safety driver in three different states. So we've done deliveries in the past for the likes of dominoes, walmart, Kroger Fedex et cetera. And we have a ton of great partnerships, We're really excited about bringing this to Uber eats. So yes, they are on road, they are not sidewalk robots and they operate at regular speeds and are governed as vehicles from a regulatory standpoint as well. So now how does it work? Someone orders a delivery vehicle pulls up. Does the person who's making the order, do they have to agree to have it delivered by neuro? And then do they have to walk outside to physically fetch the food? Yeah, so it's it's very, very similar to how you get an Uber delivery today. So you place an order if you're eligible for a free delivery, if it's in one of the markets in which we're operating, you'll have the option to then get an A. V. Delivery. We will then provide you with the information you need. So things like the pin code where the vehicle is very similar to a human delivery. You come outside. You enter in a four digit pin, the doors will open, You get your, you get your food, the doors will close and off it goes on to the next delivery. So what are the rights that this vehicle has of course for anyone driving on the road you get in a car crash, someone hits your car, you have rights. This is technology cosmos. So if something goes wrong, if there is a crash by accident or someone is at fault and hitting one of these vehicles, what's the protection in place? Well, there's sort of two parts, right? No one is, we have to adhere to all of the state regulations and in both California and Texas and everywhere else we operate. We obviously do. And that means things like having insurance. It also means that we have to adhere to the federal regulations and we are one of the only companies to have received an exemption for our vehicle, uncertain aspects of it. For instance, we don't have to have side view mirrors on our vehicle and that actually makes the vehicle safer because the side view mirrors would just be something that sticks out. So everything about the vehicle is designed to try and protect the safety of everyone around it over the safety of what's inside because of course we can replace your burrito and that's something that we would do if we got into an accident. What's the price of one of these vehicles? So we're working on down costing the vehicle further. Um, right now, what we're really focused on is figuring out how to best market the vehicle and how to best bring it to market with consumers and folks like Uber eats and others. So the intent is to reduce costs for both the merchants that Uber works with as well as Uber and for the end consumer, by continually removing costs out of the equation. Alright, I think we've got to leave it there. Cosmo Leopold the head of partnerships in Euro. Cosmo, thanks so much for coming on the show.