US self-driving startup Nuro has been granted a permit by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to test its autonomous grocery supply robots on public roads.
The company can now test two of its driverless and passenger-free R2 light-duty supply robots in nine cities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
These include Atherton, East Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and Woodside.
The delivery robots, which cannot exceed a speed limit of 25mph, are allowed to operate only in fair climate conditions on streets that have speed restrictions of no more than 35mph..
Steve Gordon, California DMV director, said: “The protection of the motoring public is the DMV’s prime precedence, and we don’t give out these permits frivolously.
“Nuro has met the DMV’s necessities to obtain this allow to check their driverless supply autos on California’s public roads.”
California has currently permitted 65 companies to test their autonomous vehicles, but with security drivers.
David Estrada, Nuro’s chief counsel, added: “Our first plan is to make free deliveries to pick out clients in Mountain View and the encompassing space.
“It will permit us to launch a proper supply service in partnership with native manufacturers and retailers.”
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