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It moves the needle in ways that have not moved much since the advent of fast food and microwave dinners. - It saves you time. - It reduces your need for expe

by useful 8y ago

It moves the needle in ways that have not moved much since the advent of fast food and microwave dinners. - It saves you time. - It reduces your need for expensive appliances and electric bills. - It reduces your need for an expensive car. - It reduces food waste/spoilage. - It allows cheaper access to delivery for all, especially the disabled/elderly.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Instacart/deliveroo provide all of those advantages - plus - someone to unload the groceries and bring them to your door, which is definitely better. And a human to talk to if there's an issue. Consumers don't care one bit that their groceries were delivered 'autonomously'. The 'advantage' of the 'self driving' in the end must be cost - and frankly a significant reduction in cost - or it won't pan out. In this scenario, there still has to be a picker, a checkout, a loader, and some human overhead on managing a live fleet of cars. The 'savings' will be on the cost of the driver - and that's it. There's also a deficit in experience related to the fact it might not work well for apartment buildings and can't unload etc.. After all the fuss, ops and overhead, this tech has to take the average grocery+delivery bill down by a fairly quantifiable amount or else it won't make sense to use it. It will happen eventually, it must may not be this company at this valuation.
- mortenjorck 8y ago
  Nuro versus Instacart is the wrong comparison, in my view. Instacart is B2C, while Nuro, if the Kroger pilot is how they plan to expand, is B2B. With Instacart, you as a grocery customer decide it’s worth a significant premium to have groceries delivered to your door, with full service. With Nuro, the initial customer is the grocery store itself; to you as the grocery customer, it’s stores with Nuro versus stores without Nuro. With a service like Nuro, the stores probably hire an extra person or two per shift so some of the floor staff can be assigned picking and loading, spreading out the labor costs. As you say, getting the cost down is critical, and if Nuro succeeds, I could imagine autonomous delivery eventually being priced into part of the standard operating costs for a grocery store.
  - neuromancer2701 8y ago
    Kroger already has this with the ClickList grocer pickup service. So instead of loading the groceries into your car the same employees will just load the robot and it will drive to your house. No extra effort or overhead because the same clicklist app will be used for both use cases.

by useful 8y ago

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Instacart/deliveroo provide all of those advantages - plus - someone to unload the groceries and bring them to your door, which is definitely better. And a human to talk to if there's an issue. Consumers don't care one bit that their groceries were delivered 'autonomously'. The 'advantage' of the 'self driving' in the end must be cost - and frankly a significant reduction in cost - or it won't pan out. In this scenario, there still has to be a picker, a checkout, a loader, and some human overhead on managing a live fleet of cars. The 'savings' will be on the cost of the driver - and that's it. There's also a deficit in experience related to the fact it might not work well for apartment buildings and can't unload etc.. After all the fuss, ops and overhead, this tech has to take the average grocery+delivery bill down by a fairly quantifiable amount or else it won't make sense to use it. It will happen eventually, it must may not be this company at this valuation.

mortenjorck 8y ago
Nuro versus Instacart is the wrong comparison, in my view. Instacart is B2C, while Nuro, if the Kroger pilot is how they plan to expand, is B2B. With Instacart, you as a grocery customer decide it’s worth a significant premium to have groceries delivered to your door, with full service. With Nuro, the initial customer is the grocery store itself; to you as the grocery customer, it’s stores with Nuro versus stores without Nuro. With a service like Nuro, the stores probably hire an extra person or two per shift so some of the floor staff can be assigned picking and loading, spreading out the labor costs. As you say, getting the cost down is critical, and if Nuro succeeds, I could imagine autonomous delivery eventually being priced into part of the standard operating costs for a grocery store.
- neuromancer2701 8y ago
  Kroger already has this with the ClickList grocer pickup service. So instead of loading the groceries into your car the same employees will just load the robot and it will drive to your house. No extra effort or overhead because the same clicklist app will be used for both use cases.