China’s ecommerce giants plan to deploy robots for delivery

Many Chinese e-commerce giants are planning to deploy robots to deliver orders to prevent the spread of covid-19.

The mobile delivery app called ‘Meituan Dianping’ launched a “contactless delivery” option for its customers last month and now it is planning to use autonomous vehicles to send grocery orders to customers in Beijing. Earlier last year, the company had started testing indoor delivery robots and drones, but this is a new initiative by the company to deploy autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads.

The proposed vehicles can carry up to 100 kilograms of goods and can deliver up to five orders on each trip. Also this method can address the issue of direct contact with couriers as they can be controlled.

Apart from Meituan, several other platforms are announcing the deployment of robots for delivering in quarantined zones. Also, Beijing-based JD.com announced that it was planning to deliver medical supplies to hospitals and local communities through autonomous vehicles in the city of Wuhan.

A food delivery service giant called Ele.me owned by Alibaba stated that it has already deployed delivery robots last month to send meals to quarantined hotel rooms in eastern China.