Call it “Battle of the Bots.”
Beginning Sept. 30, the flamingo-pink food delivery robots you may have seen rolling along city sidewalks are set to get some competition.
Los Angeles-based Serve Robotics plans to roll out “dozens” of its own robots, less than a year after Coco Robotics began a pilot program here in the 27th and 34th wards.
Logan Doub, Coco’s general manager, told the Chicago Sun-Times this week that he welcomes a new player in town and says there is enough business for more than one company.
“Absolutely — demand for delivery in Chicago is strong and growing,” Doub said in an email. “With thousands of deliveries across the city every week, and more restaurants and neighborhoods coming online, there’s plenty of business for multiple players. Our focus remains on providing fast, reliable service and continuing to expand where restaurants and their customers need us most.”
Ali Kashani, Serve Robotics’ CEO and co-founder, said the rollout in Chicago builds on the company’s expansion from Los Angeles to Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta.
Serve’s robots are green and white and appear to be slightly taller than the Coco robot, which is 22.5 inches tall with a cargo hold about 15 inches deep. (Serve declined to give specific measurements of its robot.)
“That’s important because of visibility. … When the robots are in your periphery, you may not see them if they are too low,” Kashini said. “They also have a light ring on top. So that’s all because we want you to notice them and minimize any negative implications, including people running into them.”
Doub said that Coco robots haven’t been involved in any major accidents in Chicago.
“The pilot taught us a lot about optimizing fleet deployment, improving routing, and handling the city’s unique challenges — from rough sidewalks to snow and freezing temperatures,” Doub said. “Today, that means a high volume of safe, reliable deliveries each week, with customers consistently telling us the food arrives on time and at the right temperature.”
Coco officials declined to say exactly how many robots they currently have operating in the city, but said they have “expanded significantly” from the pilot’s original 20, serving 125 restaurants and retailers, including White Castle.
Asked what reaction, if any, residents in 27th Ward have had to the Coco robots, an employee in Ald. Walter Burnett’s office told the Chicago Sun-Times, “no comment.” A spokeswoman for Ald. Bill Conway’s 34th Ward said there have been “no major complaints” about the robots.
The Serve robots are expected to initially deliver in these neighborhoods: Austin, Belmont Cragin, Dunning, East Garfield Park, Lake View, Logan Square, Uptown and West Town — among others.
Like the Coco robots, the Serve machines are mostly autonomous as they navigate crosswalks and busy intersections. A remote human being can intervene if necessary.
“The human is there to help, but the robot can do most things by itself,” Kashani said.
The Serve robot boasts a top speed of 11 m.p.h. and a 15-gallon cargo capacity, holding up four 16-inch pizzas for example, company officials said.
For both Coco and Serve, customers typically order using a food delivery app, such as DoorDash or Uber Eats. When the robot arrives, the customer meets it on the sidewalk, presses a button on the delivery app to open the robot’s cargo hold. Robots only deliver to one client at a time.
Customers can choose to opt out of a robot delivery. But then it’s still up to the delivery company to decide whether — given the delivery location and time of day, among things — it would be more efficient to use a delivery driver or a robot.
Kashani said the arrival of delivery robots doesn’t signal the beginning of the end of human delivery drivers.
“But if it’s a short distance, a robot should do it — usually in congested areas — because if a human were to do that delivery, they would have to spend a bunch of time looking for parking on each side and dealing with traffic,” Kashani said.