"The delivery driver (送货员) has your food and is on his way. " This is a message you might receive after placing a takeout order. But in the near future, a self-driving car may bring food to your door instead of a human driver.
Baidu and Meituan are now working together to use self-driving technology to deliver food. They will be experimenting with this in the Xiong'an New Area, Beijing Evening News reported.
The self-driving cars will mainly be used to send group orders, and the single orders are usually handled by delivery drivers. For example, if a company orders food for its staff (员工), a self-driving car will bring all the food to the company.
Sina Tech noted that using self-driving cars will be a revolution (革命) in the food delivery industry, as it will cut down the cost of labor (劳动力).
Online food delivery services have developed rapidly in China. Almost 300 million users have used online services to order food. In 2016, MeituanWaimai was the NO 1 among all food delivery companies.
Self-driving delivery services will help the development of the industry. But that doesn't mean that delivery drivers will lose their jobs. There are still some problems to work out. For example, self-driving cars can drive smoothly on cement (水泥) roads, but have problems driving on dirt roads. There are other safety-related problems that must also be solved before self-driving cars can be used.
