Waymo starts delivering Uber Eats orders in Phoenix

Imagine ordering lunch on Uber Eats and walking outside to find a car with nobody behind the wheel, waiting for you to pop the trunk and grab your bag. That is now official reality in Phoenix.

Uber and Waymo have expanded their existing robotaxi partnership to food delivery. Customers using Uber Eats across Metro Phoenix can now have their meals delivered by a fully autonomous Waymo vehicle.

The service covers a territory of over 225 square miles, which the companies claim is the largest autonomous vehicle service area in the world. Initial merchant rollouts focus on Chandler, Tempe, and Mesa, including local favorites like Princess Pita, Filiberto's, and Bosa Donuts.

How the trunk pickup works

The ordering process is pretty straightforward. When you place an order on Uber Eats within the coverage area, the app displays a notice stating that an autonomous vehicle may deliver your order.

If you prefer a traditional delivery person walking up to your door, you can simply opt out during checkout. Otherwise, Uber matches the order with a Waymo Driver.

Once the self-driving car pulls up outside, you get a notification on your phone. You walk outside with your phone in hand, use the app to unlock and open the vehicle's trunk, grab your food, and close it up.

Why it matters

Moving people in autonomous cabs is one milestone, but using the same multi-thousand-pound machines to haul burritos and donuts is a very different business test.

For consumers, it is undeniably cool to see the future pull up to your curb, but it definitely changes the convenience equation. Instead of a courier walking up your driveway or knocking on your door, you have to walk out to the street and retrieve your meal yourself. If it is pouring rain or you live in an apartment complex, that novelty might wear off fast.

For Uber and Waymo, however, this setup is remarkably clever. Ride-hailing demand spikes around morning and evening commutes, while meal delivery peaks during lunch and dinner. By plugging Waymo's fleet into both networks, Uber can keep expensive autonomous vehicles moving during hours they might otherwise sit parked.

In our view, the real barrier here is not the driving technology, but the unsolved last ten feet problem. Until autonomous vehicles have a way to bridge the gap between the curb and the doorstep, full-size autonomous cars will likely remain best suited for sprawling suburbs with easy curb access rather than dense urban neighborhoods.