They aren't that new. Starship Technologies, founded in 2014, has performed over 9 million deliveries across 270 locations.

That’s… not many at all, really. You could do it in a year with ninety deliveries per day per location (well, 92).

Assuming a dozen robots per location, that's less than eight deliveries per day per robot (and even that might be beyond their upper bound, actually, given their speed and range).

But then they didn't do it all in one year. So… it doesn't feel like a stretch.

Given how many will be recurring customers with recurring journey routes, it feels barely enough to encounter all the possible unique problems.

Starship is just one company. There are dozens in the west. In China there are hundreds of sidewalk delivery robot start-ups.

We're not talking about all the "Possible unique problems", we're just talking about the really obvious ones that are easy to think up .

My wife is nearing 40 and she had these things delivering food at her midwestern college town back when she was still in school.

Limited rollout and obviously an ideal environment, but these things are nowhere near new.

By new you mean half a decade?

Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, LA City, West Hollywood others

Been around since 2020, multiple companies here

They’ve all gone through several iterations, debates, and approvals to reach symbiosis