The image is called "NuroRendered Airbag."
The third-generation of Nuro's vehicle has a weird-looking external airbag for pedestrians.
The company says its new vehicle will have twice the cargo space as the second-generation R2 robot. It will include modular inserts and temperature-controlled compartments to keep food warm or cold.
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. It is one of the few companies that have 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 new vehicle's external air bag is the most eye-catching feature. A rendering of the front end of the vehicle has an inflated mattress strapped to it. The vehicle is not intended for human drivers or occupants, so Nuro put the airbag on the outside for pedestrians in case of a collision.
It is the latest attempt by a company to account for the safety of people outside of the vehicle. While it may look silly on the surface, the fact that Nuro is thinking about how people interact with self-driving cars is refreshing.
The auto industry is responding by producing vehicles with higher carriages and larger front-ends, as Americans have traded sedans and small cars for huge trucks and SUVs. Over the last decade, there has been a 50 percent increase in pedestrian deaths.
The person is thinking about how people interact with self-driving cars.
The government doesn't rate vehicle makers on the basis of pedestrian safety because they don't account for the safety of the people in their vehicles. The New Car Assessment Program should include ratings for pedestrian impacts, according to the Biden administration.
There have been many crashes and at least one pedestrian death associated with self-driving cars, but they are held up as a solution to the rise in traffic deaths.
Nuro says that the new vehicle will be built in Nevada, where the manufacturing facility is still under construction. The electric motor and battery will be made in the US by BYD, a Chinese company that is one of the largest manufacturers of electric vehicles in the world. The factory is expected to be up and running later this year.
The company is not well known compared to its competitors in the space because of its focus on delivery. 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.
The company says it expects to eventually scale its business to include millions of customers, but it is not giving a time frame for that.
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