Recently, NURO announced that C-wheel financing introduced new investors such as Woven Capital, Chipotle, aimed at accelerating the R & D process of unmanned trucks, but the financing amount has not been disclosed. This investment is the first investment of the newly established growth period of Toyota Auto Company Woven Capital. Woven Capital was established in 2021, mainly committed to automatic driving, artificial intelligence, data analysis and investment in smart cities.
Before this, the round financing has obtained the global investment institution T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and the world’s top investment institutions Fidelity Management amp; Research Company, LLC., Tesla Important New investors such as Baillie Gifford, the original investor Soft Silver Vision Fund, Greylock’s investment. So what is the charm of a unmanned start-up? Can you be favored by such a world top investor? Why didn’t China have cultivated such a company?
Talent Book
NURO was established in 2016, Zhu Jiajun, Chief Engineer Engineer, former Google Unmanned Car Team, and Google Computer Vision and Machinery Learners, Chief Engineer Dave Ferguson. It is reported that Zhu Jiajun is one of the earliest members of the Google Uninhabited, responsible for leading the research and development and team management of two core technologies and simulation.
He graduated from Fudan University in 2005. After two years, he received a master’s degree from the University of Virginia, during the Google Street View Team, “Click-to-GO The new idea and patented. In 2008, Zhu Jiajun officially joined Google, and then entered Google Unmanned Car Team until it became the person in charge of the software direction, the team led by the company, and then built the Google “Firefly” that has been loaded into the unmanned car development. Human car.
Dave Ferguson is an automatic driving vehicle industryOne of the earliest pioneers, he was responsible for the Path Planning System of the 2007 US Department of Defense Automatic Driving Competition (DARPA) championship vehicle during the University of Carnegun University, and also participated in the development of NASA Mars detectors. Or one of the Intel Personal Robot Laboratory. 
In addition to the excellent resume, many Google drone core members have also followed Nuro at the time. Its automatic driving team contains members of the 2007 Darpa competition, and the three chief engineers from Google are responsible for the hardware and software core technology of the three generations Google automatic driving.
The robotic algorithm includes many graduates from the world’s first-class famous schools, including Carnegiemelon, Stanford, California Berkeley, Massachusetts, Princeton, CA Polytechnic, Harvard, Oxford, Peking University, Fudan, etc. The artificial intelligence team also includes the Magenet’s previous champion and the front member of DeepMind.
However, in addition to talents and teams, NURO has always been the most popular, or its positioning and automatic driving.
NURO logic, mode and progress
This mode is also very flat with high human cost, and the universal United States in the single-family house is more common, so in February 2018 when Nuro launched their first After the product – L4 unmanned distribution car R1, it will rapid attention. R1 is like a small shuttle car, the height is similar to a SUV, but the width is only about half of the ordinary sedan, there is no steering wheel, pedal and other devices in the car, and there is no driver’s seat, is a completely automatic driver. In December 2018, Nuro and Kroger super in ArizonaThe city cooperation began commercial trial operation.
Local residents online single, automatic driving distribution, order or next day delivery, no breaks in seven days, no minimum consumption requirements, shipping costs of $ 5.95 (about 39 yuan). Maybe for the Chinese, the delivery fee is 39 yuan is very expensive, but in the US system, the 6 dollar distribution fee is much more cost-effective than manpower. Then Nuro also reached a cooperation with the major retail brands, such as Wal-Mart, Damei, CVS Pharmacy, etc.
In February, the drone delivery service NURO was approved by the US Transport Department (DOT) and the US National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA), got the time limit 2 In the year, the number of road permits not more than 5,000 units is also the first time the United States launched a similar regulatory license. Last December, the California authorities also approved the commercial operation of Nuro unmanned trucks. In addition, in order to expand its business, Nuro also acquired automatic truck startup company IKE. At this point, Nuro is completed with the biggest challenge other than the automatic driving landing technology, which can fully sprint the scale. It is reported that Nuro unmanned trucks currently use the modified version of Toyota Prius, which will gradually use its customized NURO R2.
China’s similar model company status
Two automatic start-up companies in China, the most similar to NURO model did not have some capital. One is the new stoneware that is started in 2015. It also released the first L4-level unmanned car in 2018. In 2019, the world’s first L4 unmanned car production line was established, and has been in Xiong’an New District. The World District, Chaoyang Park, Shougang District, Fuzhou Feifeng Mountain, Xi’an Datang Night City, Xi’an Ancient City Wall, Rookie Logistics Park and other places to deploy operations. During the 2020 epidemic, I also went to Hubei Mobile, enter Wuhan Lei Shenshan Hospital to cooperate with medical staff withoutContact epidemic prevention and disinfection work and provide medical supplies to medical staff.
From the perspective of financing process and amount, the progress of production and landing has not changed its attitude towards its “cold”. The latest round of financing, official in March 2020, A + round, 200 million yuan, by ideal automobile and 达 capital joint investment, old shareholder Yunqi capital and Yao Tu Capital.
The other family with the Neolithic is the white rhinoceros, founded in April 2019. It is also aimed at the beginning of the initial distribution. During the 2020 new crown epidemic, the white rhinoceros will also open the unmanned car to Wuhan, providing normalized unmanned transportation services in Wuhan Guanggu Class Hospital. In September last year, the white rhinoceros unmanned shipping car officially put into the Yonghui Supermarket Antingxin Town Store Operation, allowing my country’s unmanned distribution truck to enter the distribution system of large chain supermarkets, appearing in daily life of surrounding residents (distribution The surroundings of 5 square kilometers, a total of 14 communities, more than 6,000 households).
The latest round of financing about white rhinoceros is also the same in March last year, which is chased by Chen Hao, but the specific financing amount has not been disclosed. Although in additional introduction, the white rhinoceros also accepts the title of “China Edition Nuro”, but the reality is that it is difficult to compare with NURO. In fact, in the automatic driving progress, China and the United States are basically in a state in which they are in line with, but why do China have such a big gap in the delivery mode? Really just because of labor costs, the form of housing is different?
The difference between China and the United States
Another important reason is that China has experienced O2O wave, there is a company like Alibaba, US Mission, etc., in China, end The distribution does not open Ali, the US group, even if it is the same in the field of unmanned distribution, they have naturalBusiness landing scene. Last year, Double Eleven, Ali took the logistics robot of 3 years to achieve distribution in Zhejiang University. This year, three schools such as Huazhong Normal University have introduced Ali’s logistics robots, let the robots send the parcel from the rookie station to the dormitory building. It is reported that the logistics robot will enter the 15th college rookie station in the country in March.
The US group has joined California Berkeley DeepDrive in 2015, and then on the basis of its own supply and demand, the route of “unmanned open platform” is played. Let all players become part of the platform. In October last year, the US group publicly opened the first AI Wisdom Store Mai Shop (Shougang Park), and the unmanned distribution car was also officially landed. During the epidemic, the US Group upgraded “None contact with delivery”, starting to use unmanned distribution vehicles to send vegetables in multiple communities in Shunyi District, Beijing. Last year, Double eleven, Jingdong is also low-key to cooperate with Beijing Materials College to create unmanned campus. 
On the United States, it is the same because of the factors of human cost, the entire country lacks a supply and demand docking platform with ecological advantages due to factors in retail. So Nuro’s business entrepreneurship in the United States, can be harvested to many traditional linear retail players. Moreover, compared to the US, China is in the distribution and other levels not only forms a giant platform that connects to the need for two ends, but they are also become industry infrastructure. I want to bypass them to set up the supply and demand ecology of them. It is basically unlikely to achieve.
The last thing is the issue of policy regulations. For example, when running on an open road, there is a lot of conditions, including whether the road is allowed to be open to the automatic driving vehicle. At the same time, who is managed and operated by these unmanned distribution? What is the accident in case? Even if the legal attribute of unmanned distribution truck belongs to the vehicle is not clear, I want to achieve the way like Nuro, basically unrealistic. So the current domestic unmanned application scenario is basically operating within a specific, relatively closed scene.
Yason Summary
However, according to the statistics of the State Post Bureau in the last two years, 2019 and 2020, the increase in the number of express delivery and the number of couriers did not have a big gap. It is basically maintained in more than 1 times. However, with the further development of e-commerce and online service industry, the human demand in the delivery industry is indeed continuously. After 5 to 10 years, whether the number of express delivery will seriously exceed the number of couriers is actually no accurate answer. The selection of the seller will not be replaced by the machine at least 10, but it is foreseeable that unmanned distribution does squeeze off a portion of the “rice bowl”.
This is because the changes in each era are destined to sacrifice a group of people and make another group of people. Just like the emergence of cars, all the carriers have been subverted, but has made countless drivers; the emergence of mechanical chemical plants, and the unique number of pipeline production workers have achieved countless express salesmen. A series of artificial intelligence of unmanned distribution will have more new industries, products and services to create new positions.
