Waymo Robotaxis Will Now Deliver Food in This City

• Waymo and Uber Eats team up to offer takeout delivery in Phoenix by robotaxi, launching the service from a number of popular restaurants.

• The Uber Eats app in Phoenix will offer users the opportunity to try driverless delivery, with users being able to unlock the trunk via their phones once the car arrives.

• Waymo's Level 4 robotaxis are now effectively joining the delivery robot industry, at least on a limited scale, though a wider rollout appears to be a matter of time.

It's already possible to get an Uber ride with nobody behind the wheel, thanks to the ride-hailing app's partnership with Waymo. Now it'll be also possible for an autonomous car to deliver you food as well, at least if you live in Phoenix.

Residents of Arizona's capital currently using Uber Eats will have the option of having their next take-out meal delivered by one of Waymo's robotaxis, which currently serve an area of over 225 square miles.

Upon placing an order through the Uber Eats app, users will receive a message that says "autonomous vehicles may deliver your order" while also giving them the opportunity to opt out in case they want a human driver, as old fashioned as that sounds.

If the app matches them with a Waymo car, users will get a special notification, and once the food arrives, they will be able to open the vehicle's trunk using their phone.

Sounds futuristic enough.

It's not as wide a launch as it may sound, though. For now, Waymo will offer driverless food deliveries through Uber Eats from a limited list of restaurants.

"To start, we'll work with select merchants in Chandler, Tempe, and Mesa, including local favorites like Princess Pita, Filiberto's, and Bosa Donuts," Waymo says.

But a wider rollout—at least in cities where Waymo is present—is only a matter of time.

Yes, this is that point at which automation really could take away a food driver's job, and we may well remember 2024 as the year that robotaxis began to replace the pizza delivery person.

Still, it's not as earth-shattering a development as it may seem, at least if we ignore the view that this is an immensely high-tech solution that involves a whole SAE Level 4 electric car with expensive sensors and computers on board.

Waymo's partnership with Uber Eats will be merely bypassing a whole industry of specialized delivery robots, large and small, that have already been delivering food within smaller geographic areas in dozens of cities. This rollout merely upgrades the delivery robot to a whole car, and an expensive one at that.

So besides gig economy workers (who live in the Phoenix area), the companies that build and sell other robots should also be worried.

What it does accomplish, at least on an experimental basis where profitable operations don't matter, is something ultimately aimed at cost-conscious business owners: Replacing a delivery driver with a machine. Or at least it gives business owners a preview of what is possible in the longer-term, once robotaxis can scale up and actually become profitable.

But we can't shake the thought that, just like the smaller robots that have been with us for a few years now, this method of food delivery by driverless car is a very impressive Rube Goldberg device that creates more activity and engages very complex machines for the convenience of users.

New jobs have been created, one might argue, much higher-paying jobs of those monitoring Waymo's fleet, all to bring you the miracle of an autonomous car delivering food.

For now this is certainly a glimpse at a future where most delivery drivers really could be replaced by machines.

Will robotaxis and robots eventually replace human delivery drivers in the next decade or so, or will this stay confined to just a few cities for the most part? Let us know what you think.