The reason for this is the fact that they want to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 disease through human-to-human contact. As such, delivery app Meituan Dianping launched a ‘contactless delivery’ initiative across China in January, and said that it had started using autonomous vehicles to send grocery orders to customers in a Beijing district. The company was looking to launch similar robot delivery services in other districts in the capital city.
Other platforms with existing unmanned delivery services have also announced the deployment of robots for more deliveries, especially to quarantine zones. JD.com announced that it was delivering medical supplies to Ninth Hospital and groceries to local communities via autonomous vehicles. Moreover, food delivery service company Ele.me – a platform owned by Alibaba – deployed delivery robots in January to send meals to rooms in a quarantined hotel in an eastern Chinese city.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now