Foodora Norway, based in Oslo, has teamed up with Tele2 to test out home deliveries using robots and drones powered by 5G technology. They picked the Stockholm area for these trials, using their Doora robot for ground deliveries while testing drones through the Foodora Air project.
Foodora, a branch of Berlin’s Delivery Hero, is already active in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, delivering restaurant meals, groceries, and other items on bikes and in cars. Their current reach also extends to Austria, Hungary, and Czechia. The partnership with Tele2 is part of Foodora’s plan to introduce GPS-based robot deliveries in the Nordic region by 2025 and 2026.
Foodora aims to launch its Doora robots for deliveries in Norway and Sweden by the end of 2025, with drone delivery starting in 2026. Prashant Søegaard, the CEO of Foodora Norway, remarked on the need to explore the challenges of making robot deliveries viable in these markets. He noted that Scandinavian countries, especially when compared to the US and Finland, still have a way to go in developing these self-driving services.
In Finland, S-Group launched the Starship Robot delivery service this December. This project uses autonomous delivery robots monitored in real-time, powered by AI to navigate and complete deliveries. So far, these robots have already completed 150,000 orders, and the service anticipates exceeding 400,000 deliveries in 2024. Tiina Meyer, a senior business developer at S-Group, highlighted the popularity of the service, pointing to the convenience and speed of delivery.
Starship Technologies, founded by the co-creators of Skype in 2014, has its headquarters in San Francisco but operates engineering teams in Tallinn and Helsinki. Foodora’s own trials in Sweden focus on how the Doora robot handles crossings and interacts with its environment.
Tele2’s Stefan Trampus expressed optimism about the project, emphasizing that the insights gained might extend beyond delivery services to other industries. The Doora can carry up to 20kg, travel at 6km/h, and runs for eight hours on a four-hour charge. Meanwhile, the Foodora Air project tests drones, like the Nimbi, which can carry 4kg over a distance of 21km, all while emitting minimal carbon emissions.
These trials will shape how Foodora expands robot and drone deliveries in Norway. They plan to launch in mid-2025, partnering with Holo, a Danish firm specializing in autonomous vehicles. This August, they ran a test in Oslo with a six-wheeled robot from Cartken, which uses 5G for reliable communication.
Holo also worked with Posten, Norway’s postal service, to test another delivery robot called Ottobot. Although this project didn’t lead to any further decisions on using delivery robots commercially, it showcases Posten’s earlier attempts with the Buddy Mobility robot in 2018, which ended in 2019 due to high costs and low demand.