Autonomous Vehicles – When will They Arrive?

Autonomous vehicles have been talked about extensively over the past few years. Early on, fully autonomous vehicles that could drive themselves without any interaction from a driver were promised in 2020. It’s 2021 and we’re not there yet. Testing centers have been established in a number of cities, and there are some small starts. Houston has a pilot autonomous delivery service that has partnered with Kroger and CVS to deliver groceries or prescriptions in certain zip codes. Either an autonomous Prius or a custom-built driverless vehicle will drive to the customer’s residence where the customer can retrieve his groceries or medications. Nuro is the company providing the vehicles for these tests; it is a robotics company working to improve the way people live through the use of robotics and artificial intelligence.

In December 2020 the company was the first to receive a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to deploy autonomous vehicles on public streets. The vehicles are allowed to operate commercially in two counties and once Nuro establishes a connection with a partner, delivery of products autonomously will begin.