Nuro Inc. is the first company authorized to operate a driverless delivery business in California.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles on Wednesday approved a license for Nuro, based in Mountain View, California, to operate its autonomous vehicles on public streets for commercial deliveries.
“The issuance of the first driver’s license is a significant milestone in the evolution of California’s autonomous vehicles,” DMV Director Steve Gordon said in a statement. “We will continue to consider the safety of the automotive public as this technology develops.”
In a blog post, Nuro’s legal and political director, David Estrada, said: “We have extensively tested our automatic driving technology and built experience in safe operations over the past four years.”
Nuro said it would soon announce a delivery partner and plans to deploy its fleet of modified Toyota Prius vehicles “completely autonomously” in two counties in the southern Bay Area, followed by the launch of its custom-designed R2 electric vehicles.
The R2 is a small, box-like vehicle that can only travel 25 mph, without a steering wheel inside and only package space. It will be allowed to operate only on certain streets and in fair weather conditions.
Nuro has been authorized to test autonomous vehicles with an indoor safety driver since 2017, DMV said, and in April it was approved for completely driverless test rides.
“Driverless delivery will have a big impact on Californians in the coming years,” Estrada said in a blog post. “A parent in Mountain View will be able to receive food for the week without grouping the family in the car. A grandmother from East Palo Alto will have access to affordable home delivery of daily necessities. And a young woman from San Jose will have the opportunity to start a new career overseeing the operation of a fleet of driverless vehicles that will fulfill these promises. ”
Nuro was founded in 2016 by former engineers from Waymo at Google. Crunchbase raised $ 1.5 billion in funding, including $ 940 million out of 9984 from SoftBank,
Vision fund.