Driverless Delivery Vehicles Now Legal In North Carolina
Lyft recently announced their plan to have self-driving vehicles on the streets of Las Vegas by 2023. Walmart is already using driverless delivery vehicles for its grocery business. Now it looks like this technology is coming to North Carolina.
Governor Roy Cooper has signed a bill into law that will make it possible for North Carolinians to someday have food or groceries delivered by driverless vehicles. The new law allows fully autonomous vehicles, known as “neighborhood occupantless vehicles,” to deliver cargo on public streets and highways in the state with a speed limit of 45 mph or less.
According to the News & Observer, Republican Rep. Jason Saine of Lincoln County introduced the bill at the request of lobbyists for Nuro, a California-based manufacturer of autonomous vehicles. Domino’s began using Nuro’s R2 model for pizza deliveries in Houston, Texas earlier this year. The R2 travels along pre-programmed routes, using cameras and sensors to avoid pedestrians, pets, and other vehicles.
Nuro also has driverless vehicles on the road in Arizona and California. They’re not saying when they might arrive in North Carolina. Florida and Nevada passed similar bills this year as well. The Nuro R2’s 400-pound cargo capacity could make it an appealing option for short-staffed businesses in every state. Here’s a video of the R2 doing its thing:
