The partnership image is called "Nuro711" and is located on the CDn.vox-cdn.com website.
In partnership with 7-Eleven, Nuro is launching a new delivery service in California. The company will deliver convenience store products to customers in its autonomously driving Toyota Prius vehicles, which will include a safety driver behind the wheel, before eventually shifting over to its fully self driving R2 delivery vehicles.
The service will only be available to Mountain View residents who live in the vicinity of the 7-Eleven store at 1905 Latham Street. Alcohol and cigarettes won't be available through 7-Eleven's "7NOW" delivery app, although customers can order items like pizza, chips, beverages, and household items.
In 30 minutes or less, orders will be delivered.
Customers will have to leave their home to retrieve items from the delivery vehicle that is parked on the street, and orders will be delivered in 30 minutes or less. The Nuro safety driver won't bring the items to the door as the company is trying to mimic a human-free delivery process.
Nuro wouldn't say how many vehicles it will deploy as part of this early version of its service, or when it will shift deliveries to its R2 robots. The decision to introduce R2 into the delivery fleet will be made by 7-Eleven and Nuro.
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Dave Ferguson, a veteran of the self-driving car project at Google, founded Nuro in 2016 along with his friend, Jiajun Zhu, who was also a veteran of the project. Nuro is one of the few US companies that has fully self-drive vehicles on public roads. The R2 vehicle is shorter than most cars and has no room for human passengers or drivers.
The R2 vehicle is half the width of a compact sedan.
The R2 has around 50 percent more capacity than the R1 prototype, which equates to about 18 more grocery bags. The company plans on making a third-generation vehicle at its new facility in Nevada.
The company is relatively unknown compared to its competitors because of its focus on delivery and not ferrying humans in robotaxis. Nuro became the first company to receive a special exemption from certain federal safety requirements and recently got the green light to charge money for its deliveries in California, but still has a long way to go on the regulatory front.
Nuro vehicles are being used for grocery deliveries in Houston, Texas. In 2020, Nuro used its vehicles to transport medical supplies around two California stadiums that were converted into treatment facilities for patients with COVID-19.
