Nuro Acquires Ike, Receives DMV Deployment Permit from California
December 23, 2020
Nuro, which is developing autonomous vehicles for delivery services on public roads, announced today it received a permit to deploy its vehicles on public streets from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The company said the permit will allow Nuro vehicles to operate commercially on California roads in two counties near its headquarters in the Bay Area.
In a blog post on Medium, David Estrada, the chief legal and policy officer at Nuro, said the company will soon announce its first deployment in California with an established partner, with a fleet of Prius vehicles in fully autonomous mode, followed by Nuro’s custom-designed electric R2 vehicles.
“Nuro’s journey has also been guided by the shared focus on safety,” wrote Estrada, “exemplified in our choice to design a custom, goods-only vehicle. R2 was purposefully engineered for safety, with a design that prioritizes what’s outside — the people with whom we share the roads — over what’s inside.”
In addition, the company announced it had acquired Ike, an autonomous long-haul trucking company founded in 2018. In a posting on Medium, Ike said the acquisition will allow the combined company to “move faster on an ambitious mission to make people’s lives better with automated vehicles.”
Nuro has done several testing in multiple states with driverless deliveries, including grocery stores in Arizona and a partnership with Domino’s Pizza for pizza delivery. The autonomous last-mile delivery market is expected to grow to $84.9 billion by 2027, with a 32.4% compound annual growth rate, according to a report by Grand View Research.
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