I guess I must really be missing the point of all this, as a bunch of people seem to want to throw a lot of money and effort at the 'problem'.
Once you create a taxi or delivery service where you have no labor cost, then your unit economics greatly improve and you have a killer business.
If you have a $10 Uber ride, ~$7.50 or so of that goes to the driver with $2.50 to Uber. With an autonomous taxi model Uber could theoretically halve fares, in this case to $5, and take in the entire $5 for themselves.
The general point is that the savings might not be enough to offset the higher capital costs from autonomous vehicles + development spend.
Where I live the streets are covered with snow and ice, and many paths and routes are difficult to navigate even on foot. No delivery vehicle is going to cope with this.
except pedestrians and other drivers. so, in fact you do.
If I were Nuro, and if it isn't already factored into the design, I would purposefully design the vehicle so that the Nuro would be squished and minimize likelihood any other vehicle involved in a crash would sustain too much damage.
Yes, in the same degree. It is a street vehicle. They even published their safety manifesto some months ago: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57bcb0e02994ca36c2ee7...
However you may meet standards and regulations, and pass all certifications, but the issues about autonomous vehicles present big unknowns. We already have accidents and fatalities related to use or misuse of UAVs. Even small sidewalk delivery vehicles may injure or kill a baby in a stroller because of incorrect detection or malfunction, or start a major accident when other drivers need to swerve to avoid them because they entered a road or stopped without notice.
Nuro is testing in Arizona like other self-driving vehicles companies. Some people are getting increasingly annoyed dealing with their behaviors and have started retaliating. With Waymo's cars, for example: https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2018/12/...