It also implies that the restaurant has to walk out to the car and place it in the car too. They aint gonna like that. Although to be fair most restaurants already hate the drivers that physically come into their restaurants and don't obey the rules.
Use stolen CC on App, pick up somewhere seedy far away from where you live. OP is right, this will be abused. What is keeping people from dumping weird things into the truck after picking up their $15 cheeseburger?
People will love that when it’s raining or in snow. What about in cities where you can’t even find parking? Or you live on the 30th floor of an apartment complex? Lol these companies are so stupid.
> What about in cities where you can’t even find parking? Or you live on the 30th floor of an apartment complex? Lol these companies are so stupid
Do you think these drivers currently run around with two to a car, one to keep the engine running while they go around the block while the other goes upstairs?
Huh? Why would I think that? My comment is regarding the customer. With an automated delivery the customer receives the goods at the location where the delivery vehicle can park near the destination. Without automated delivery, the human receives the goods at their front door.
> Without automated delivery, the human receives the goods at their front door
Fair enough. Not really an issue in Phoenix. Plenty of buildings (in San Francisco and Atlanta, to memory) require delivery to be dropped off at a centralized location. And there aren’t many high rises, or months of monsoon, in Phoenix.
Phoenix would be a city where this will be less of an issue for sure, but you still have two and three story apartment buildings that require customers to go downstairs for their food.
Having to go outside significantly reduces the benefit of delivery. Now customers have to interrupt what they’re doing, make sure they look OK so the neighbors don’t see their underwear and bed hair, put on a jacket or raincoat in bad weather, possibly wait on 2 elevators, and pick up their food right next to their own car in the parking lot. In some cases, this could take five minutes. Customer realizes that they could just get in their car and drive to the restaurant at this point, so why order for delivery?
> but you still have two and three story apartment buildings that require customers to go downstairs for their food.
Everyone keeps ignoring you on this part, but they aren't thinking about people with disabilities or mobility issues that rely on delivery services to get their groceries because alternative or public welfare programs don't exist for this.
What happens when DoorDash, UberEats, Instacart, etc. all go autonomous? People with disabilities get screwed in the name of profit. They are already getting screwed with higher prices as is.
These customers can't simply "go downstairs and meet the car" the point of delivery specifically in this case is to have it brought right to your door. Automated cars miss this usecase entirely.
> In some cases, this could take five minutes. Customer realizes that they could just get in their car and drive to the restaurant at this point, so why order for delivery?
What? They’d stumble down in pyjamas. If they’re in a building that probably means exiting and re-entering a parking garage. Also, it’s Phoenix. Nothing is five minutes away—the urban plan is one of sprawl.
I agree it’s less convenient than door delivery. But against that is the cost of tipping and humans getting lost. For it is the fact that in many major cities, people routinely order food delivery despite being required by building policy to pick it up downstairs.
I think we’ve exhausted this discussion. It’s reduced down to simple individual opinions about whether it’s worth it to drive to a restaurant or not.
I only wanted to point out that The customers are getting less not more. And the companies will make less money because the automated cars are more expensive than drivers that are willing to take food for 2 to 3 dollars a delivery. If you fail to see that or recognize it, I’ll leave it at that.
When I order food delivery I try to limit myself to locations nearby because I don't want to be a hassle and make a driver drive 10 miles out and 10 miles in. I also factor in a tip for the delivery itself.
If it's a robot delivering to me I don't care if I make the robot drive 30 miles out to get me food (as long as the food is something that won't taste notably worse after such a long drive of course). Plus I'm not going to tip the machine.
I think plenty of Phoenicians will tip themselves to walk to the curb.
> the companies will make less money because the automated cars are more expensive than drivers
Disagree. The marginal cost for a late-night Waymo is probably already comparable to that of a driver, and that’s before we get to California’s Prop 22.
Outside of the late summer monsoon, there is rarely serious rain in Phoenix, and virtually never snow.
Probably at least part of why the pilot program is there.
There also aren’t many 30-floor residential buildings. Phoenix is basically the quintessential American West suburban sprawl town: outside of a proportionally very small downtown it’s entirely dominated by houses and occasional 2-3 story apartment complexes.
You clearly have never used these services or are out of touch. Having a human deliver kind of sucks, lots of risk of tampering with food and it’s overall a terrible experience especially for women.
This is a brilliant fix, for the case of folks wanting it physically delivered, I am sure you can or will be able to pay for that.
Well they did mention one specific, and that is the fact that this service is only for DashMart orders i.e. the first part of any autonomous delivery order is at a DoorDash -controlled and -staffed facility. Where they can babysit the process.
To me that pickup part seems almost more difficult than the delivery end of the journey. If you think about a busy restaurant with app-delivery orders piling up on the counter, how is that order going to get into the autonomous vehicle outside or down the road? Maybe a new service will spring up called mini-Dash where a human has a job running the orders down to the waiting vehicles?
Obviously the cars can drive themselves on public streets, but how do you go up to someone's house and put a burger on their doorstep?