Autonomous delivery robots are already operating at scale — and Avride says it has more than 60 driverless Uber vehicles and several hundred delivery bots running today. Sergei Kirillov, chief commercial officer at Avride, breaks down where the company is live, how its sidewalk robots differ from road vehicles, and why college campuses and dense urban deliveries are proving grounds for autonomy. He also discusses public reaction, vandalism concerns and the real logistics use cases behind the technology.

Avride has surpassed 1,000 autonomous vehicles in active deployment — counting both its suitcase-sized delivery robots and its passenger car fleet — positioning the company among the largest operational autonomous vehicle fleets in the United States, the company's Chief Commercial Officer said in a recent interview. The milestone matters to logistics operators and last-mile delivery platforms because it represents real-world scale, not just pilot programs. Last-mile delivery has long been one of the most expensive and labor-intensive legs of the supply chain, which is why players including Avride, Serve Robotics, and Starship Technologies have targeted sidewalk delivery as an early commercial beachhead for autonomy.

The company currently runs roughly 150 to 200 vehicles in the Austin area focused on R&D, and more than 60 autonomous passenger cars on the Uber platform in Dallas making daily rides with passengers, the CCO said. On the delivery side, Avride has deployed several hundred small autonomous rovers — described as suitcase-sized robots — operating on the Uber Eats and Grubhub platforms across Jersey City, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, and Miami, as well as on more than 25 college campuses. Campuses are a common starting point for sidewalk robot deployments because they offer dense demand, low vehicle speeds, and controlled environments; riders on the Uber platform in Dallas also place Avride alongside companies like Waymo that are carrying paying passengers with U.S. ride-hail customers.

"Together, robots and cars, we're way over 1,000 already," the CCO said. "So that actually sets us to the top of the range in these AV company ratings. And this is a very important experience that we're getting. Very few other companies have actually reached that level of intelligence and knowledge about the space."

"I actually think that in the larger cities by 2030, the majority of deliveries done in downtown or dense areas will be already done by different types of automated delivery devices or cars. I think it's totally possible. I think 2028, 2029 will be the years of the massive scaling of this technology to every sphere of our life."

Avride's core technology strategy centers on building a single underlying autonomous driver system that can be adapted across chassis types — from sidewalk robots to passenger cars — rather than engineering purpose-built vehicles for each use case. The CCO noted that the robot compartment was specifically designed to fit a standard 16-inch pizza box, with insulation and space for beverages, while the animated face on the exterior was a deliberate design choice that produced a "dramatic decrease of vandalism" by encouraging users to associate the device with a living creature.

On the passenger vehicle side, all rides remain supervised, meaning a human safety operator is present or monitoring remotely. The CCO said transitioning to a fully unsupervised mode requires further development of the core technology as well as broader infrastructure updates, including autonomous-capable car platforms from manufacturers, expanded charging capacity, and depot availability. The company also flagged that merchant-side infrastructure for autonomous delivery — such as loading and unloading protocols — remains underdeveloped and limits the addressable market.

Looking ahead, Avride plans to expand autonomous car operations into at least three additional markets by 2028. The CCO said delivery via autonomous passenger vehicles is a near-term priority, noting that items fitting in a car trunk could be delivered "pretty soon," while larger-load delivery depends on the availability of purpose-built automotive platforms. The company views its combined robot and car operational data as a compounding advantage over competitors who have deployed at smaller scale.

The summary is based on a transcription of the interview. Source: FreightWaves.