The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has granted US self-driving startup Nuro a permit to test its autonomous grocery supply robots on public roads.
Nuro is only the second company to obtain a permit to operate a driverless vehicle in the US state. The first was Waymo.
Nuro has received permission to test two of its R2 light-duty supply vehicles 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 driverless grocery supply 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.
Nuro’s driverless robot have already been tested in Arizona and Texas.
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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