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Text | Deng Simiao
Source: Smart Car Reference
Another logistics giant has also abandoned the unmanned delivery vehicle project!
Following Amazon, the global express delivery giant FedEx also shut down its unmanned delivery vehicle project.
This wave of operations was really caught off guard, because the road test cooperation agreement was signed with Dubai only 4 months ago, and the team was still expanding externally six months ago.
As for the reason for the shutdown, the official statement is very vague:
Failed to meet company requirements.
Moreover, it is the famous Dean Carmen who built the unmanned delivery vehicle for FedEx. He may not hear much in China, but in the United States, he is as famous as Bill Gates and has more than 1,000 invention patents. Known as the modern Edison.
And, the “balance car” under your crotch was also invented by him.
FedEx shuts down self-driving car project
FedEx’s unmanned delivery vehicle is called Roxo.
Everything seemed to be on track until news of the shutdown came out. Most recently, in June this year, FedEx reached a partnership with Dubai officials, and the Roxo unmanned vehicle is about to start a road test between the Dubai Silicon Valley Oasis headquarters and the digital park.
Half a year ago, the team was still recruiting “pricing staff”:
This also gives the impression that the federal unmanned delivery vehicle is about to move from the testing stage to commercial operation.
Including last July, Roxo unmanned vehicles announced the opening of road tests in Japan:
Well, unlike Amazon’s, FedEx’s unmanned delivery vehicle is still a global project.
But suddenly, it was officially announced that it was closed. FedEx is also very confused inside and out. Frontline employees only get an email from Chief Transformation Officer Sriram Krishnasam:
While machinery and automation are key pillars of our innovation, Roxo self-driving vehicles have recently failed to meet the requirements of the DRIVE program. The R&D has come to an end, but Roxo still has value and significance, and it deepens our understanding and application of robotics.
The DRIVE plan, a strategic transformation plan within FedEx, is actually to reduce costs and increase efficiency by improving transportation efficiency. The goal is to save 4 billion U.S. dollars (equivalent to about 28.93 billion yuan) compared to now by fiscal year 2025.
This is also the original intention and goal of Roxo’s unmanned vehicles, but now that the exploration is over, the logic is very clear: unmanned delivery vehicles cannot help the company reduce costs and increase efficiency – at least at this stage.
This can also be seen from the introduction on the official website:
Unmanned distribution is the most expensive and complex part of the entire logistics and transportation process, and we are working hard to reduce costs.
And the official also revealed that the shutdown of unmanned vehicles is to allocate resources and energy to some “new projects”.
Of course, in addition to the problems of the unmanned delivery vehicle itself, FedEx’s overall performance has not been very good recently.
As of August 31 this year, FedEx’s total revenue in June, July and August was US$23.2 billion, an increase of only 5.5% year-on-year and a month-on-month decrease of 4.9%.
It even set a record for the lowest revenue in recent quarters:
△Q1 of fiscal year 2023 in the figure represents June, July and August of this year
Under such performance, the company’s president and CEO Raj Subramaniam repeatedly emphasized in the recent earnings conference call:
Quickly reducing costs is my priority.
Therefore, it seems normal to cut off the money-burning research and development of unmanned delivery vehicles. Quoting Huawei Ren Zhengfei’s internal letter: Pass the cold down.
What Amazon can’t play, FedEx is not immune.
Roxo unmanned vehicle explores these 3 years
FedEx’s Roxo self-driving car will be officially launched in 2019.
Roxo means purple in Portuguese, which is the purple in the FedEx logo.
Safety has always been the core goal and pursuit of Roxo’s external emphasis.
So it started with simulation and closed-road testing before rolling out to five U.S. communities: Manchester, New Hampshire; Memphis, Tennessee; Plano, a suburb of Dallas, Texas; Frisco; and Richardson.
The unmanned vehicle is powered by batteries and is 99 cm long, 74 cm wide and 157 cm high, with a self-weight of 204 kg and a maximum load of 45 kg.
There are 2 wheels at the front and 4 wheels at the back, so you can go up the steps and deliver to your door.
The screen behind the car can play the role of transmitting information.
The body shell is surrounded by a layer of sealing ring, which is not affected by bad weather and can prevent water from entering the cargo.
At the hardware level, a built-in gyroscope is said to help ensure driving stability and protect the interior of the car.
Equipped with an Intel i7 processor, there are more than 20 sensors around the body, including lidar, cameras and radar.
The set of machine learning algorithms they developed allows the car to recognize obstacles in the distance and respond in a timely manner.
The driving speed is similar to the speed of human brisk walking, but it is slower than the speed of the cyclist. In general, the speed of the vehicle is affected by the surrounding traffic environment.
With HD maps, the driving area is limited to a 3-mile (4.8km) radius.
Through the mobile app, users can track the trajectory of the unmanned vehicle in real time and check the estimated delivery time.
It is worth mentioning that this unmanned vehicle requires the assistance of a human remote operator.
The operator can monitor the Roxo throughout the process, and the operator will adjust the driving route of the driverless vehicle if necessary; when the Roxo encounters an unfamiliar situation, it will automatically stop and ask the operator for help.
Netizens were relatively indifferent to this unmanned car.
The main disadvantage is its practical value.
Not optimistic. These self-driving cars get in the way of pedestrians on the sidewalk, and they travel too slowly.
The driving force behind the Roxo driverless car
In fact, FedEx didn’t even come down to do this project in person. The R&D team behind it came from DEKA, a third-party outsourcing company.
The company produces a wide variety of products, including balance bikes, portable medical dialysis machines, prosthetics, silicone ankle-foot orthoses, water purification systems, electric wheelchairs, and more. The products are well received by the market.
The Roxo self-driving car is based on their existing electric wheelchair iBot.
Before the launch of the Roxo unmanned vehicle, the electric wheelchair had been used for more than 10 million hours in the real world, providing convenience for many paraplegic patients.
But self-driving cars are now dying halfway through, perhaps unexpectedly by company founder Dean Kamen.
Frederick W. Smith, the founder and chairman of FedEx, has always wanted express delivery services to be safer and more efficient, with significantly lower transportation costs.
At that time, he believed that unmanned delivery vehicles could just meet this goal and create infinite possibilities. So he immediately found Dean Carmen and asked him for help, hoping that he could develop and design a safe and diverse unmanned delivery vehicle.
And the reason why he was placed on such high expectations is also inseparable from his personal legendary experience.
Dean Carmen was born in New York in 1951 and is 71 years old.
From the age of 5, he began to tinker with some gadgets; at the age of 16, when he was part-time at the Hayden Planetarium in the United States, he invented an automatic induction lighting system, which was later used by 4 museums including the Chicago Science Museum. , and paid him generous remuneration.
Dean Carmen was admitted to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but dropped out early before graduating. Known as the modern-day Edison, he holds more than 1,000 patents, invents balance bikes, electric wheelchairs, portable kidney dialysis machines, insulin pumps, and more.
He has won numerous awards in his life, such as the National Medal of Technology personally presented by President Clinton; the portable water purifier he invented was named the runner-up of the “Coolest Inventions of 2003” by Time Magazine;
He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for inventing the automatic injector; in 2006, he was awarded the “Global Humanitarian Action Award” by the United Nations; in 2007, he received the highest award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers – the ASME Medal.
As early as 1982, Dean Kamen founded the company DEKA, which is the home base of the Roxo unmanned vehicle.
But up to now, even excellent promoters, companies, and teams have obviously failed to save the fate of unmanned vehicles.
One more thing: Unmanned delivery vehicles fail in America
With the withdrawal of FedEx, unmanned delivery vehicles can be said to have entered a cold winter early in the United States and suffered a major defeat.
First Amazon, then FedEx… They are all giants, and they are all big companies with resources and ecological scenarios. They can’t play well, and other startups can be imagined.
Undoubtedly, it is rare that the west is not bright and the east is bright, and unmanned delivery vehicles are also facing new questions in China.
Domestically, the main players of unmanned delivery vehicles seem to remain firm in their direction.
But whether Ali or JD.com, the No. 1 position of the unmanned delivery vehicle project has left one after another, and the core team is also turbulent.
I don’t know if I saw a bigger opportunity to fly faster, or I encountered an unsolvable core problem.
What unsolvable core problems can unmanned delivery vehicles have?
In China, there are currently two clear:
First, how can it be more efficient and cheaper than human delivery? Want to grab a job as a takeaway and courier, do you have enough qualifications?
Second, aside from technology and cost, the right-of-way problem of unmanned delivery vehicles has not been effectively solved.
Unmanned delivery may be a certain direction in the future. But looking at it yesterday and today, it’s not yet a track that’s going to show explosive power right away.
What do you think?
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This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-10-24/doc-imqqsmrp3581416.shtml
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