Pandemic prompts e-commerce to use more delivery robots
More than 1,000 robots will join the delivery armies of Chinese giants Alibaba, Meituan and JD.com.
More than 1,000 robots will join the delivery armies of Chinese giants Alibaba, Meituan and JD.com as the pandemic continues to drive demand for contactless services.
The companies are expected to operate more than 2,000 robots by 2022, driven by falling costs of making robots, executives said.
In China, millions of couriers are still delivering packages at lower prices, the report said. As early as 2013, due to labor shortages, companies began to explore the use of drones or wheeled robots.
Xia Huaxia, Meituan's chief scientist, said the "coronavirus epidemic is a huge boost" for the robot promotion plan. The food delivery giant launched its robotic service in February 2020, earlier than originally planned.
Kong Qi, chief scientist of autonomous driving at JD Logistics, said the company also launched robotic services ahead of schedule.
Kong Qi said: "We hope that people and cars can cooperate better, instead of letting cars replace people. We try to let cars replace the most boring part of the work for couriers."
Currently, delivery people still outnumber robots, which have limitations such as being unable to climb stairs. Also, due to speed limits and road conditions, robots can only work on certain routes. Robots are often used to deliver less time-sensitive products such as packages, rather than food.
Zhang Ji, 25, picks up packages from an unmanned delivery vehicle near her office in Beijing. "(Robots) are very inefficient in office areas because people order a lot of takeaways and parcels, but delivery vehicles have limited capacity," she said.
But proponents argue that robots have long-term benefits, such as lowering last-mile delivery costs. Alibaba said that as of September this year, the company's last-mile delivery vehicles had fulfilled more than 1 million orders. The company currently operates more than 200 logistics robots, which it plans to increase to 1,000 by March next year.
Wang Gang, vice president of Alibaba Group, which is in charge of the autonomous driving business, said the cost of making robots has fallen, mainly because the price of lidar sensors has dropped. Such sensors can help measure distances and map the environment around the vehicle.
JD.com, which operates about 200 robots, plans to increase the number to about 1,000 by the end of 2021, the report noted.
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