In collaboration with Nuro, a robotics company transforming local commerce with autonomous vehicles, 7-Eleven is launching the first autonomous commercial delivery in Mountain View, Calif., enabling its customers in the service area ordering through the 7NOW delivery app to have their products delivered via bot.
“7-Eleven has owned and defined convenience since 1927,” said Raghu Mahadevan, 7-Eleven chief digital officer. “Our first foray into autonomous delivery was in 2016 when 7-Eleven became the first retailer in the U.S. to make a drone delivery to a customer’s house. Since then, we haven’t stopped looking for ways to redefine convenience for our customers inside and outside the four walls of our stores. Fast forward to 2021, and we are pushing the boundaries of innovation even further to provide customers with the first commercial autonomous delivery service in California. I can’t wait to see where we go from here.”
Here’s how it works:
Customers can download the 7NOW delivery app and browse to purchase items like pizza, chips, beverages, household items and more. The items will be added to the shopping cart to begin the checkout process, and autonomous delivery can be chosen. The 7NOW delivery app will send updates as the order is processed, and orders will arrive in approximately 30 minutes. The autonomous vehicle can be met outside and items can be grabbed from the back of the vehicle.
Nuro will begin this delivery service with its autonomous Priuses and later introduce R2 bots, the company’s autonomous robots that are custom-built to transport products and goods without any occupants in the vehicle. Nuro became the first autonomous vehicle company to receive a deployment permit from the California DMV in December 2020, enabling the launch of this inaugural commercial delivery service in the state in collaboration with 7-Eleven.
“Residents in the state of California — a major hub of innovation — have never been able to experience the commercial delivery of goods by an autonomous vehicle. Nuro is teaming up with 7-Eleven to change that,” said Jiajun Zhu, Nuro CEO and co-founder. “We’ve always wanted to bring Nuro’s autonomous delivery to our local community and to our neighbors. We couldn’t be more excited to do this with an iconic neighborhood store like 7-Eleven in our hometown, Mountain View.”
Based in Irving, Texas, 7-Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 77,000 stores in 19 countries and regions, including nearly 16,000 in North America. 7-Eleven operates Speedway, Stripes, Laredo Taco Company and Raise the Roost Chicken and Biscuits locations. It is known for its iconic brands such as Slurpee, Big Bite and Big Gulp.
