American robotics firm Nuro has secured a US$40m (£29m) investment to build two new facilities in southern Nevada to grow production of its third-generation of autonomous delivery vehicles.
One site will be the company’s first end-of-line manufacturing facility in the U.S.. Totalling over 125,000 square ft. of space and over 80 acres of property development. Nuro expects the new commercial facility will be capable of producing tens of thousands of delivery vehicles.
“This is a significant moment for Nuro. Building on our tremendous momentum—including strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Domino’s, Kroger, and FedEx and operations in three states—we are now able to invest in the infrastructure to build tens of thousands of robots,” said Jiajun Zhu, Nuro co-founder and CEO.
“We greatly appreciate the state’s leadership in working with us to finalise this partnership. The decision to place these facilities in Southern Nevada was an easy one.”
Additionally, the second site features a closed-course test track for trialling the autonomous delivery robots. Nuro will be taking over 74 acres of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to enable validation of its self-driving on-road vehicles.
The testing track will measure bot performance in a broad range of scenarios, from avoiding pedestrians and pets to giving bicycles space on shared roadways, as well as environmental tests and vehicle systems validation.
Construction on the production facility will begin this autumn and is expected to be completed in 2022. Both facilities are expected to be fully operational next year.
