Big Story

The Smallest Name on DoorDash's Drone Launch List Might Be the Most Important One

This week DoorDash pulled the cover off DoorDash Air, a six-propeller drone it designed and assembles in San Francisco. Pilot deliveries start in Northern California in the coming months, and DoorDash says early tests averaged under five minutes from restaurant to customer.

Now look at who signed on first. Chipotle. Popeyes. And Momo N Curry, a local shop. Two national chains and one neighborhood restaurant, sharing the same launch.

That third name is the story, and it's one we know well. For three months, TSO Chinese Takeout & Delivery in Austin has been offering customers autonomous delivery through Autolane at the same price they already pay. Customers are choosing it. The owner didn't hire a tech team or rebuild the kitchen. Autolane handles the coordination, so the car knows where to stop and the staff knows exactly when to walk the order out.

That's the part most people miss. The vehicle is the easy part. The hard part is the last 50 feet. Which car is arriving, which door it pulls up to, how long it can wait, and who meets it with the bag. Now multiply that by drones, sidewalk robots, and robotaxis all showing up at the same restaurant on the same Friday night.

Two weeks, two signals pointing the same way. Small operators are no longer waiting at the back of the line. The ones who win will be the ones whose door is ready when autonomy shows up.

Autolane is the autonomous delivery platform that coordinates the last 50 feet, whether you run one location or a whole portfolio. The owner keeps the customer. We keep the curb running. 👉 goautolane.com

Image source: www.doordash.com

‍AV ROUND UP

Tesla doubles its Cybercab fleet in Austin. Tesla quietly took its Cybercab count past 100 over the weekend, and riders got an app alert saying more rides are open. That's a lot more two-seat robotaxis with no steering wheel pulling up to Austin storefronts.

Waymo grows its Texas fleet 49% in three weeks. Waymo now has 1,102 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas, about a third of them new Ojai minivans. Nationally it's averaging 500,000 paid rides a week. More cars means more arrivals at every Texas curb.

Uber is on track for autonomous rides in 15 cities by year-end. Uber is lining up six U.S. markets and nine international ones, pulling in partners like Nuro in San Francisco and Houston and Zoox in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It isn't building its own self-driving tech. It wants to be the app where everyone's robotaxis show up. For operators, that means more brands of autonomous cars pulling into the same lot, all booked through one familiar app.

THIS WEEK ON LINKEDIN

We follow Rob Kenedi, host and co-creator of Decelerator and co-creator of the BetaKit podcast, Canada's leading tech podcast. This week he shared a post about an interview he did from the passenger seat of Ben's Tesla, and we had to pass it along.

His read: Autolane doesn't build the cars or write the autonomy software. It's the plumbing between a self-driving vehicle and the restaurant it pulls up to. Every automaker is building its own stack, so a store won't see one kind of robot. It'll see thirty. A five-location restaurant is never going to build thirty integrations, so somebody has to sit in the middle.

The takeaway for operators: you shouldn't have to learn thirty robots to serve your customers. You should only have to learn one handoff.

Robs Post

THE LAST 50 FT

No new episode this week, but National Podcast Day just passed, so consider this your excuse to catch up. On Episode 21, Cam sat down with Autolane's own Hamei Hamedi, a former restaurant owner who knows firsthand what happens at the curb on a busy Friday night. Other recent conversations include Garrett McCurrach of Pipedream and David Richer of Orbital Kitchens. Subscribe now and you'll never miss the next one.

Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, & Apple Podcasts 🎧

THE AUTOCOMM BRIEF TAKE

It's easy to read DoorDash's news as a big company story. A custom aircraft. Thirteen years of order data. Half a million restaurants on the platform. Chipotle and Popeyes on the launch list.

But we keep looking at the third name. A local shop sitting next to two of the biggest brands in fast food, getting the same new way to reach customers on day one. No innovation team. No tech budget. Just an owner who said yes.

That's the opportunity for everyone reading this. If you run one location, you are not too small for autonomy. If you own the center that location sits in, your tenants are about to get options they never had. The owners who raise their hand early get to decide how it works at their door.

The lane is changing. Let's make sure it leads somewhere worth going. 🏁

coverage.goautolane.com

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