Forget deliveries—this firm wants to bring a grocery store to your driveway

Enlarge (credit: Robomart)

Last month, we wrote about a wave of startups like Nuro, Starship, and Marble that are building autonomous delivery vehicles. It's a promising concept. Designers of these vehicles don't need to worry about passenger comfort or safety (since there are no passengers). And vehicles can be slow-about 25 mph (40 kph) for Nuro, even slower for Starship and Marble-without irritating anyone inside the vehicle, which greatly simplifies the technical challenges of building a fully autonomous vehicle.

In our survey of this emerging market, we didn't mention another fascinating startup with a different twist on the same basic concept.

"It's not a delivery vehicle, it's an autonomous store on wheels," said Ali Ahmed, the CEO of Robomart, in a Tuesday interview with Ars.

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