Postmates To Begin Dispatching Delivery Robots In LA

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The next time you order takeout, your delivery person might actually be a robot.

The food and grocery delivery service Postmates announced Thursday it is rolling out a fleet of robots that it calls "Serve" to deliver to its customers.

Postmates will begin using Serve in Los Angeles before expanding it to other cities over the next year.

The robots are fully electric and are designed to move on sidewalks. They can run 30 miles on a single charge and carry 50 pounds, according to Postmates.

Customers can "interact" with the robots using a touchscreen and cameras. They have dynamically lit eyes and a light ring on top to signal their movements. The exact logistics of how the deliveries will be made were not disclosed. It's also unclear exactly what L.A. neighborhoods will be getting Serve.

Postmates says the robots won't replace their human delivery fleet, but will supplement them.

"By leveraging data to model the modern way in which food and goods move around our cities, we were able to identify even greater efficiencies when we augmented our existing fleet of more than 350,000 Postmates with rovers — with the eventual vision to move those goods at zero cost," Postmates said in a blog post.

This comes as online retail giant Amazon is working to implement a drone delivery system.