Mercedes-Benz Vans invests in autonomous final-mile robots

Mercedes-Benz Vans has invested in start-up enterprise Starship Technologies, a company developing ground-based, autonomous delivery robots. The arrangement is an extension of the automotive giant’s strategic future initiative ‘adVANce’, launched in September 2016.
Through the adVANce program, Mercedes-Benz is committing to support small businesses with up to €500,000 ($710,000) in backing from a €500 million ($710 million) pool, to help them explore innovative transport ideas that will satisfy the future needs of customers in the ‘last mile transportation of goods and people’ field.
As lead investor in Starship Technologies, Mercedes-Benz Vans is participating in the €16.5 million ($23.4 million) financing round. The two companies already introduced the so-called ‘mothership’ concept back in September 2016. The concept combines the advantages of a van with those of an autonomous delivery robot. A Sprinter presented as a prototype serves as a mobile loading and transport hub for eight robots. Thanks to the intelligent interlinking of delivery processes, it will play a part in significantly improving the efficiency of last-mile delivery logistics.
“The robot can only travel short distances under its own power and until now has had to return to the warehouse to be reloaded after each delivery,” said Volker Mornhinweg, Head of Mercedes-Benz Vans. “The introduction of the van as a mobile hub widens the operational radius of the robots significantly, while also rendering superfluous the cost-intensive construction and operation of decentralised warehouses.

“We see the combination of these two technologies as an opportunity to give our van customers access to some completely new services and business models. At the same time, we make the delivery process much more convenient for the end customer. The concept makes it much easier to deliver goods to the end customer on time.”
The two companies announced at the recent CES 2017 in Las Vegas that initial pilot tests for this combination of van and robot will take place in Europe over the coming months, with a real-world environment pilot project scheduled to take place later this year.