FedEx Warned Not To 'Invade' New York City With Sidewalk Robots

"FedEx delivery robots invade New York City streets," read one newspaper's headline, describing the six-wheeled "SameDay" bots that the company is testing in four cities.

But this week New York City told them they're not welcome, CNN reports: The delivery robot, called Roxo, is not actually being tested in New York, but was visiting the city for a special event, a FedEx spokesperson told CNN. Nevertherless, lawyers for the New York City Department of Transportation delivered a cease-and-desist letter to FedEx on Monday, warning that the robots were violating multiple traffic provisions... Motor vehicles are not permitted to operate on New York City sidewalks, and no motor vehicles may be operated without "having at least one hand" on the the steering mechanism any time the vehicle is moving, according to the letter.

"FedEx's robots wouldn't just undercut the jobs of hardworking New Yorkers -- they would be a danger on our crowded streets," Will Baskin-Gerwitz, Mayor Bill De Blasio's deputy press secretary, told CNN.

Ignoring laws

[fluffernutter]

Isn't ignoring laws the trendy thing to do in this case? Don't know a boardroom in the nation that will let things like laws hold them back.

Robots are coming

[lgw]

FedEx's robots wouldn't just undercut the jobs of hardworking New Yorkers

Is New York a state where you can't pump your own gas, or am I thinking of New Jersey? This sort of resistance of progress just prevents standard of living from improving. And when it does improve elsewhere, the middle class tends to leave, and that never ends well.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

Making customers do their own work for the same price is progress?

Nobody "made" customers choose self-serve gas stations. They were successful because they offered consumers a better deal: Save money by pumping your own gas instead of paying someone to do it for you while you sit and wait.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

If you think people get 'a deal' except maybe at first when there are a lot of full serve around then you're a fool. They make it look cheaper until everyone in the area is self serve, then they raise prices to what they would have been anyway pre-change.

Re:

[ChrisMaple]

Gas stations used to be extremely price competitive, because there were so many of them that almost everywhere that there was one there was another whose posted price you could also see.

Gas mileage has increased dramatically over the last 50 years, and as a consequence the number of stations has fallen. Though there's still a lot of competition that does keep prices down, it's not as severe as it once was. Still, gas station ownership is not a way to get rich quickly. Having an extra employee to pump gas do

Re:

[fluffernutter]

The point is that there are very few cases where customers get a permanent benefit from doing their own work. Can anyone point to a grocery store with self checkout that actually charges less consistently on products than the competitors? Is stuff cheaper in an Amazon Go store than it is anywhere else? That may be the case until all stores are Amazon Go style, then without anyone to compete against prices will rise again.

Re:

[SvnLyrBrto]

There's no additional work being done by the customer at Amazon Go, regardless of any price differential. Go cuts the checkout step out of the shopping experience entirely. So, unlike the self checkout at the grocery store, it's a customer/store win/win across the board even if the prices are the same as a store that does have to pay someone on the register.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

Except there are no employees, so prices should be cheaper if the proposition holds that customers get the benefit of labor savings anywhere.

Re: Robots are coming

[Frosty Piss]

Washington State has self serve. Next door, Oregon does not. Price difference negligible.

Re:

[dcw3]

Are the taxes the same? Is that accounted for in your "Price difference negligible."?

Re:

[SvnLyrBrto]

Never mind the money... it saves *TIME* to just jump out, swipe my card, start the pump, squeegee my windshield, replace the nozzle, grab my receipt, and go. Gas stations in the two full-service-only states are, in my experience, seldom if ever staffed to a level where the gas jockeys are faster than just doing it myself unless I'm the only, or one of at most three, customers in the station.

And it's not like "full service" includes the "check the tires, brakes, oil, and miscellaneous fluids" of ye olden da

Re:

[dcw3]

It's Jersey.

Re:

[kenai_alpenglow]

And the people recently voted to keep that law in place.

Re:

[dcw3]

If Jersey didn't have i95, it would be just another fly over state.

Re:

[Cmdln Daco]

Part of the problem in Jersey is that it is infested by the type of people who use terms like 'fly over.'

Re:

[dcw3]

Agreed. I've been to 49 of them and lived in 7. I shouldn't have used the term myself...I think it's snobbishly used by elitist coastal types.

Re:

[cusco]

It's often used by people who came from those states, like myself, who know there really is little to no reason to want to pass through them.

Re:

[PPH]

"Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Huh?

[DogDude]

NYC allows companies to operate flagrantly illegal gypsy cab companies on a wide scale. They also allow companies to illegally abandon scores of electric bikes and scooters all over sidewalks and streets. Why would they care if yet another giant multinational corporation decides to violate a few more laws?

Re:Huh?

[CrimsonAvenger]

The new multinational didn't bribe the right people in the City's government?

Re:

[fafalone]

NYC only has CitiBike, which must use docks, and Revel, which are full on mopeds and must obey normal curb parking laws. There's no other bike or scooter shares operating legally or illegally. Lime operated legally next door in Hoboken.

nyc just made local lawyers mad

[renegade600]

and the lawyers were just gearing up for all the money they could have made with all the tripping lawsuits.

"Hard-working" is such an underhanded insult

[BAReFO0t]

Show of hands: Who would work hard, if he could work smart instead and make the same money with half the work? Right. Nobody.
Now who whould still work just as long to make twice the money that way, instead of finally having a life to actually enjoy that money? Again: Nobody.

The only reason anyone is ever working hard, is when he doesn't have the choice or doesn't have the brains, to get it done smarter.
So when somebody says "hard-working", he calls you either a de-facto slave, or stupid, or both.

Thanks. I'm

Re:

[ChrisMaple]

Get a life.

You appear to think that the best possible life would be doing nothing while all sorts of nice things happen to you. That's the dream of an empty mind, the goal of a person without purpose.

Re:

[dcw3]

Lots of volunteers work hard every day...for no money.

\o/

[easyTree]

How about a post about New York which doesn't make New Yorkers sound like assholes?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

How about a post about New York which doesn't make New Yorkers sound like assholes?

We have enough lies here already.

I wonder how long it will take...

[gijoel]

For people to work out a way of robbing these things? They look well armored,but that's not going to stop a determined thief.

Re: I wonder how long it will take...

[Miamicanes]

That's probably part of the rationale for banning them. If they're at least technically illegal, NYC police can wash their hands of responsibility when they inevitably get vandalized, robbed, or stolen. FedEx would go to file a police report, and be dryly reminded that reporting it would be like filing a police report for cocaine and/or child porn stolen by burglars & asked whether they *really* still wanted to file that report. Once word got out that the police wouldn't protect the robots, it would be

Hey Fred, it doesn't work that well...

[Raymond Berry]

As a former FedExer in two of the company's divisions (ground and air), I know Fred Smith is always looking for ways to cut labor costs, as his biggest competitor has limits on what they can do (UPS, which is union). The problem he has right now is that what was innovative and exciting in the 80's is now a commodity business, with all his remaining competitors doing what he did to the air express game. Sure, Amazon did a better job of greasing palms in NYC (which Trump did well as a developer there), but

Re:

[stephanruby]

The AI and ability to negotiate crowded sidewalks isn't anywhere near what it needs to be...

Who said AI is needed?

Even if their AI isn't good enough, the FedEx bots can always be remote controlled [commercialappeal.com] by a human operator.

"The bot can remain constantly connected to a remote ‘control tower’. Remote operators can intervene, see the surroundings through the bot’s cameras, and take over full driving control of the bot when needed. Operators can also communicate with people around the bot including first responders through a speaker and microphone."

And if they're anything like the Kiwi bots in Berkeley, that means they can hire workers in Colombia and only pay them $2 an hour [thehustle.co] to remotely drive them.

Re:

[Raymond Berry]

That remotely controlled idea may work for an overloaded bot's brain, but what's to keep an average street thug from throwing an old blanket over that bot's cameras, stealing what it has, and bashing it with a baseball bat? That's life in NYC. Every day. A few bucks to the right street gang can make that happen, which kills the whole idea of automating deliveries in heavily congested urban areas. It's emerging technology, but not ready for the real world of the streets.

Hard working..

[AHuxley]

If NY workers where so "hard working" nobody would have any reason to find money and invest their own money in "robots".
Robots are doing something humans cant/wont do 24/7...

If NY politics wants to stop advancements in tech, what other new tech will NY stop?

Got new robotic tech to sell, use? Try a state and city outside NY that is more aware of science and innovation.
Move your money, skill and tech exceptionalism out of NY and find a low tax, more advanced pro tech city.
Invest in abetter part of the

Re:

[Cmdln Daco]

Okay. Go for it. Move your company to Pittsburgh.

Re:

[AHuxley]

Anywhere that welcomes US tech, investment, jobs and wont over tax.
Let their city show the robots and win exports.
Other robot brands will move in.
Buyers globally will find that city, stay, mention, talk about the US experts.
The city gets a good reputation as pro science, pro tech, pro investment., with good tech workers.
NY gets mentioned as the city that failed tech and likes any new tax...

Re:

[cusco]

Move your money, skill and tech exceptionalism out of NY and find a low tax, more advanced pro tech city.

That's what Amazon had to do with their HQ2. NYC threw away $5 billion/year in salaries, at least a dozen big new buildings, a telecom and infrastructure upgrade, and the renovation of most of an entire borough.

Re:

[rldp]

Good.

Opportunity cost

[Solandri]

You can't just look at the dangers posed by delivery robots and decide you don't want them. You have to compare to the next most likely alternative, which is currently couriers on bicycles. And their safety record is pretty abysmal [npr.org]. I could easily see robots being a better alternative.

So much for being "progressive"

[trboyden]

"FedEx's robots wouldn't just undercut the jobs of hardworking New Yorkers -- they would be a danger on our crowded streets," Will Baskin-Gerwitz, Mayor Bill De Blasio's deputy press secretary, told CNN.

Who is the party of change again? Apparently only change that benefits certain special interests is "progressive".

Choose Humans Over Machines

[BrendaEM]

Why not, just once, have a value system that benefits people?

One hand on the steering mechanism ?

[RockDoctor]

and no motor vehicles may be operated without "having at least one hand" on the the steering mechanism any time the vehicle is moving, according to the letter.

Someone at FedEx has already started researching sources of mummified hands, one of which can be used in each robot to make it compliant with the law.

As presented, this doesn't specify that the hands have to be either human, or alive. In fact, considering that people with artificial limbs can drive perfectly well, then I doubt that either stipulation

Telluwhat...

[Suripat]

...sometimes it's just good to live far away from the US of A. And also away from the latest technology trends. Some of these things are really irrelevant and annoying. Besides, no technology ever improved Humans ethics and morals, so, what the heck.