Amazon is entering the robot delivery game using an electric pannier on wheels it’s calling the Amazon Scout. The e-commerce giant is the latest company to try out this type of automatic, last-mile delivery solution, following a crop of startups, in addition to experiments by larger companies like Domino’s Pizza and PepsiCo.
The design looks similar to robots, although details concerning the Scout are slim on the ground. Actually, the Scout appears almost identical to apparatus in Starship Technologies, an Estonian startup that was an early entrant to the field. A spokesperson for Starship Technologies said “we’re huge believers in autonomous delivery robots. As the company that created this category, it’s great to see others realizing the potential.”
“We are happy to welcome Amazon Scout to our growing suite of innovative delivery solutions for customers and look forward to taking the learnings from this first neighborhood, so Amazon Scout can, over time, provide even more sustainability and convenience to customer deliveries,” Sean Scott, vice president of Amazon Scout, stated in the blog article.
An electrical battery and six wheels power the Scout and moves at daily walking speed. Only six devices are now testing in one neighborhood in Snohomish County, Washington, in which they will deliver packages” in daylight hours” between Monday and Friday. According to Amazon, the robots will be accompanied by human overseers, to begin with. This is to ensure that the devices can”safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians and anything else in their path.”