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Uber Eats and Motional are working on driverless food delivery for 2022

Meal-kit deliveries will come via Motional’s all-electric Hyundai robotaxis.

A gig worker rides with an Uber Eats backpack.

Santa Monica residents could see Uber Eats deliveries via driverless cars next year.

Photo: Robert Anasch/Unsplash

AI doesn’t just want to eat your lunch — sometimes it wants to deliver it, too.

Driverless tech provider Motional and Uber Eats plan to add a dash of autonomy to food delivery next year in Santa Monica, serving up meal kits from select restaurants. The news was first reported by AiThority.

The plan is for food deliveries to come via Motional’s all-electric Hyundai IONIQ 5-based robotaxis. Motional said this will be the first time its vehicles are used to deliver food. It's not clear whether humans or robots will bring the meal kits to customers' doorsteps.

This isn't the first partnership with a ride-sharing company for the Motional, though. It has already paired with Uber competitor Lyft. Motional and Lyft are set to put driverless Lyft vehicles on the road in 2023 in Las Vegas, a city that has become a petri dish for AI and emerging urban tech experimentation.

 Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

motional uber eats
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