Growing fleet of delivery bots spreads to 40 L.A. neighborhoods

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Serve Robotics has deployed more than 500 sidewalk delivery robots across 40 Los Angeles neighborhoods, up from just two neighborhoods in 2023, as the California company races to prove that autonomous machines can replace human couriers.The company, which spun out of Uber’s Postmates in 2021, has expanded to six metropolitan areas covering 20 cities nationally, Ali Kashani, Serve’s chief executive, told The Times.In Los Angeles, there are now Serve bots serving South Central, Del Rey, Little Tokyo and elsewhere.He described the milestone as “an overnight success built over a long time,” noting that the project began in 2017.Los Angeles is the second-largest food delivery market after New York and was Serve’s founding territory because of its car-dependent culture and high delivery density.

It was also one of the first cities to allow the delivery bots.The Los Angeles fleet runs on its most advanced Gen-3 robot, which carries onboard Nvidia chips providing five times the processing power of the previous model.

The additional computing power allows the machine to identify a broader range of obstacles, from bus shelters to specific types of vegetation.Serve has operated at what the industry calls “Level 4” autonomy since 2022, meaning the robots complete most tasks autonomously but request assistance from a remote pilot or an on-ground “robot wrangler” when they are stuck or get attacked.The company has partnerships with more than 3,500 restaurants across Uber Eats and DoorDash.

Their robot fleet of 2,000 robots uses AI to learn to beetter navigate unpredictable outdoor street intersections, crosswalks, climate conditions and obstacles.Not every city is welcoming the growing fleet.

Glendale recently imposed a moratorium on delivery robots, a setback Kashani called “obviously disappointing.”Kashani said the company never enters a city without first engagi...