What is the Last Mile — The "Most Expensive Mile" in Logistics
Last-mile delivery refers to the "final leg" of the delivery process — from a distribution center or logistics hub to a customer's front door. It is the most costly segment of the entire logistics process, accounting for 53% of total delivery costs and up to 41% of overall supply chain costs. The average cost of a human-delivered shipment is approximately $10.10 per package, with roughly 50% of that attributed to labor.
Why is it so expensive? There are three reasons. First, delivery destinations are dispersed, resulting in long distances between stops and poor route efficiency. Second, failed delivery attempts due to recipient absence are frequent (causing an estimated cost increase of approximately $200,000 per year per company). Third, driver labor costs continue to rise.
Demand for this "most expensive mile" is accelerating, fueled by the explosive growth of e-commerce. The global e-commerce market is projected to reach $6.42 trillion in 2025 and $6.88 trillion in 2026. Global B2C parcel volume is estimated at 121 billion packages in 2025 (up 10% year-over-year), with China alone accounting for approximately 60% of the global total at 81 billion packages. Eighty percent of consumers expect same-day delivery, and 76.3% of those expect delivery within three hours of placing an order.
Environmental concerns are also serious. Last-mile delivery accounts for 20–30% of urban CO2 emissions, and without intervention, delivery vehicles are projected to increase by 36% and CO2 emissions by 32% over the next decade.
Structural Driver Shortage——Why Autonomization Is "Inevitable"
The most powerful driver of last-mile autonomy is not technological advancement, but structural labor shortages.
According to estimates by the International Road Transport Union (IRU), 3.6 million driver positions remain unfilled across 36 countries worldwide, with an additional 3.4 million retirements projected by 2029. In the United States, an estimated 60,000 to 82,000 drivers are in short supply, resulting in losses of $95.5 million per week due to idling trucks. Long-haul driver turnover rates reach 90%. In Europe, the average age of truck drivers is 47, with one-third aged 55 or older, and mass retirements are expected over the next decade.
The situation in Japan is even more pressing. The "Logistics 2024 Problem" — in which overtime limits for truck drivers were capped at 960 hours annually starting April 2024 — is projected to result in a 14% shortfall in transport capacity in 2024, rising to 34% by 2030. More than 500,000 driver positions are unfilled or at risk, and there is a possibility that more than one-third of parcels will be undeliverable by 2030.
This structural shortage cannot be fundamentally resolved through immigration or wage increases. McKinsey projects that "80% of parcels will eventually be delivered by autonomous vehicles," and autonomy has entered a phase where it is not a "choice" but an "inevitability."
History — Experiments, Winter, and "Rekindling"
The history of autonomous last-mile delivery can be divided into three phases.
Phase One: The Experimental Era (2014–2019). In 2014, Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis established Starship Technologies. In 2016, former Waymo engineers Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu founded Nuro. That same year, Rakuten launched pioneering practical experiments in drone logistics in Japan. In 2019, Wing became the first drone delivery company to obtain a Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate from the FAA. Amazon Scout also began field testing in multiple U.S. cities.
Phase Two: The Winter Years (2020–2022). The COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in demand for contactless delivery (a 77% increase in delivery volume across all industries), providing a short-term tailwind for robotic delivery. However, regulatory barriers, scaling difficulties, and unestablished unit economics gradually became apparent. In 2022, Amazon discontinued Scout ("there are areas where it does not meet customer needs"), and in October of the same year, FedEx withdrew Roxo ("it did not meet short-term value requirements"). Autonomous delivery temporarily entered a "winter period."
Phase Three: The Resurgence (2024–2026). However, from 2024 onward, multiple factors converged simultaneously, ushering in a renaissance for autonomous last-mile delivery. The maturation of Transformer-based vision models and foundation models, the restoration of confidence in autonomous technology broadly through Waymo's commercial success (500,000 paid rides per week, 90% reduction in accidents), regulatory frameworks established in more than 20 U.S. states, and proven unit economics of under one euro per delivery — all of these combined to once again draw the attention of investors and companies alike to autonomous last-mile delivery.
Sidewalk Robots — From Campus to City
The most mature category of autonomous delivery robots is small robots that travel on sidewalks.
Starship Technologies (founded in 2014) is the industry leader, having completed over 9 million deliveries and operating more than 2,700 robots across 270 locations in 7 countries. The company has raised over $280 million (approximately ¥42 billion) in total funding, including a $50 million (approximately ¥7.5 billion) Series C led by Plural in 2025. Order volume on university campuses has grown by more than 70% year-over-year, and the company plans to expand to multiple European countries through a partnership with Uber Eats (announced in 2025). It has set a goal of scaling its fleet to over 12,000 robots by 2027.
Serve Robotics (NASDAQ: SERV, an Uber spinoff) plans to deploy a fleet of over 2,000 robots — the largest sidewalk delivery fleet in the United States — by the end of 2025. The company serves 110 high-density areas including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, and Chicago, achieving a 99.8% completion rate. Revenue has surged 9.6x from $2.7 million (approximately ¥405 million) in 2024 to $25.9 million (approximately ¥3.885 billion) in 2025. The company is rapidly expanding its business foundation through a strategic partnership with NVIDIA, integration of Voysys teleoperation technology via the acquisition of Phantom Auto, and a partnership with White Castle (launching March 2026).
Coco Robotics is a restaurant delivery robot company based in Los Angeles that uses a hybrid model combining remote operation and autonomy rather than full autonomy. It has produced 1,000 robots, completed over 500,000 deliveries, traveled over 1 million miles, and partnered with more than 3,000 merchants.
Cartken, founded by former Google engineers, has demonstrated urban reliability using computer vision alone — without LiDAR. The company has attracted attention for its capital efficiency, achieving profitability with less than $25 million raised. It has partnered with Mitsubishi (Japan) and Grubhub, with operations in Japan, Europe, and the United States.
Kiwibot (now Robot.com), originally from Colombia, operates over 500 robots across the United States, Canada, and the Middle East, having completed more than 250,000 deliveries.
Road-Type Autonomous Vehicles — From Middle Mile to Last Mile
Large road-going autonomous vehicles, bigger than sidewalk robots, are also rapidly moving toward practical deployment.
Nuro (founded in 2016 by former Waymo engineers) has raised a cumulative total of over $2.2 billion and reached a valuation of $6 billion. In September 2024, it made a major pivot in its business model, shifting from operating its own delivery vehicles to licensing its Nuro Driver software. In 2025, it raised $203 million from Uber and NVIDIA, and plans to launch a robotaxi fleet powered by Nuro Driver in Lucid Motors SUVs in major U.S. cities in the latter half of 2026. It aims to deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis over the next six years. Nuro was also the first company to receive an FMVSS exemption from NHTSA.
Gatik specializes in B2B middle-mile autonomous trucking and has achieved the first fully driverless truck operations at commercial scale in North America. It has completed 60,000 fully driverless orders without incident, logging over 2,000 hours of driverless operation and more than 10,000 miles of public road driving. Contract revenue has reached $600 million. It has partnerships with Walmart, Kroger, and Tyson Foods, and runs on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor.
Udelv has developed the world's first cabless autonomous electric delivery vehicle, the "Transporter." Powered by Mobileye Drive, it achieves Level 4 autonomous driving, supports a payload of 2,000 pounds, and handles up to 80 stops per run. The company aims to have more than 50,000 units in operation by 2028.
Drone Delivery——Last-Mile Logistics from the Sky
Drone delivery is rapidly growing as a third option that addresses the needs of areas where ground delivery is difficult and ultra-fast delivery demands. Compared to diesel trucks, drone delivery can reduce CO2 emissions by 84% and energy consumption by up to 94%.
Wing (Alphabet) became the world's first to obtain FAA Part 135 certification and has completed over 750,000 residential deliveries. It covers more than 2 million customers, and delivery volume in the second half of 2025 tripled compared to the first half. In March 2026, service also launched in the San Francisco Bay Area. Following the end of Walmart's DroneUp partnership, Wing is building out a plan to expand to over 270 stores, covering approximately 10% of the U.S. population (about 40 million people).
Zipline started with medical supply delivery in Africa (blood, vaccines, etc.) and has surpassed a cumulative 2 million deliveries. In January 2026, it raised $600 million (approximately ¥90 billion) in a Series H round, followed by an additional $200 million (approximately ¥30 billion) in March, bringing its valuation to $7.6 billion (approximately ¥1.14 trillion). Fidelity, Tiger Global, and Valor Equity Partners are the lead investors. The Platform 2 drone delivers packages weighing up to 8 pounds within a 10-mile radius. U.S. delivery volume has grown at 15% per week over the past 7 months.
Amazon Prime Air has expanded to seven metropolitan areas with its MK30 drone (as of February 2026). It has obtained BVLOS approval from the FAA, and its collision avoidance system has been evaluated as "functionally equivalent to human pilot situational awareness." The company has set a long-term goal of delivering 500 million packages per year by drone by 2030. The fact that "86% of Amazon's packages weigh less than 5 pounds" (Jeff Bezos) underpins the business case for drone delivery.
Manna Aero (Dublin, Ireland, founded 2018) has completed over 200,000 flights in Dublin and demonstrated high acceptance, with 62% of households in its service area using the service. It has garnered enough support that residents lobby on Manna's behalf, and the company is also advancing expansion into the United States in partnership with Just Eat and DoorDash.
A Deep Dive into Technology——Why Now Is Different from 2018
The biggest technical reason autonomous delivery has "reignited" is the qualitative leap in AI and perception technology.
The evolution of vision and perception technology is the most significant. In 2018, CNN-based object detection was the mainstream approach, but today Transformer-based vision models have become the standard, and methods for converting data from different sensors (LiDAR, cameras, radar) into a unified Bird's-Eye View representation have been established. Companies like Cartken have even emerged to demonstrate urban reliability using only computer vision, without LiDAR.
The emergence of foundation models for robotics is also a turning point. NVIDIA's GR00T N1.6/N1.7 (open-inference Vision-Language-Action models) and GR00T N2 (World Action Model architecture) have improved success rates in new environments to more than twice that of conventional VLA models. Jensen Huang (NVIDIA CEO) declared at CES 2026 that "Physical AI has arrived. Every industrial company will become a robotics company," and announced GR00T N2 at GTC 2026.
Simulation technology has also advanced significantly. NVIDIA Cosmos and Isaac Sim have made it possible to train Physical AI through synthetic data generation, and testing in virtual environments prior to real-world deployment has become standard practice.
5G/V2X connectivity enables seamless switching between autonomous mode and remote control mode. Ultra-low-latency teleoperation interfaces, such as Serve Robotics' Voysys teleoperation technology, function as a safety backup. The C-V2X market is projected to grow from $2.43 billion (approximately ¥364.5 billion) in 2025 to $56.44 billion (approximately ¥8.466 trillion) by 2034.
In edge computing, the NVIDIA Jetson T4000 is becoming the standard inference platform for robotics. Through integration with DGX-class infrastructure, a unified pipeline from cloud-based training to edge deployment has been established.
Regulatory Progress — The Law Catches Up with Technology
The regulatory environment is also a key factor in the resurgence.
In the United States, more than 20 states have authorized delivery robots, with sidewalk operation as the default, speed limits (mostly under 10 mph), weight limits, and operating licenses as common requirements. The NHTSA announced an AV framework in April 2025, expanding its exemption program for autonomous vehicles that do not fully comply with FMVSS. The FAA, in addition to Part 135 certification (already obtained by Wing and UPS Flight Forward), is expected to finalize the BVLOS final rule (Part 108) in spring 2026.
Japan legalized Level 4 autonomous delivery robots on public sidewalks through an amendment to the Road Traffic Act in April 2023. Robots are legally treated in the same category as pedestrians and wheelchairs, with a speed limit of 6 km/h. In February 2025, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry released the "Future Outlook for Autonomous Delivery Robots" roadmap, positioning autonomous delivery robots as a national implementation priority.
In the EU, U-space regulations (EU 2021/664) mandated implementation across all member states by 2025, and the EU's first U-space operational area launched in Italy in January 2026. However, the regulatory environment still varies significantly by region, and Amazon has cancelled its commercial drone delivery plans in Italy, citing EU regulations.
China, under a more permissive regulatory environment, has JD.com, Meituan, and Cainiao operating autonomous delivery at scale. Two manufacturers account for approximately 90% of China's professional autonomous delivery market.
Silicon Valley VC Perspective——Large-Scale Investment in "Physical AI"
Silicon Valley VCs are positioning autonomous last-mile delivery as the core of their "Physical AI" investment thesis.
Investment scale is expanding rapidly. In just the first seven months of 2025, robotics startups raised over $6 billion, outpacing the full-year 2024 total of $6.1 billion. However, deal count has declined from 671 in 2023 to 473 in 2024, marking a clear trend toward "large capital concentrating in a small number of winners."
Looking at major investment cases, SoftBank Vision Fund invested $940 million in Nuro in 2019 (valuing the company at $2.7 billion at the time). Valor Equity Partners led Zipline's Series H ($600 million), with Tiger Global and Fidelity also participating. Koch Disruptive Technologies led Gatik's Series B. Plural led Starship Technologies' Series C. NVIDIA made a strategic investment in Nuro, advancing technical collaboration with its DRIVE AGX Thor platform.
Rising interest rates in 2022–2023 and a frozen IPO market temporarily made VCs cautious, but they have returned since 2024 for the following reasons. First, Waymo's commercial success—500,000 paid rides per week, a fleet of 3,000 robotaxis, and expansion plans to 11 cities—has restored confidence in autonomous technology broadly. Second, unit economics have been validated, including Serve Robotics' 9.6x revenue growth and Cartken reaching profitability. Third, advances in AI foundation models such as NVIDIA's GR00T and DRIVE Thor have reduced development costs and risk.
a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) is actively pursuing AI-centric robotics and software-driven automation companies, deploying a "Physical AI" investment thesis exemplified by its investment in Figure (humanoid robots). Sequoia has invested in Physical Intelligence (robotics AI), and Lightspeed is also actively entering the robotics investment space.
Market Data — Autonomous Delivery by the Numbers
The overall last-mile delivery market is projected to grow from approximately $184.2 billion (roughly ¥27.63 trillion) in 2025 to approximately $277.8 billion (roughly ¥41.67 trillion) in 2030 (CAGR 8.6%).
The autonomous delivery robot market is forecast to reach approximately $0.8–1.35 billion (roughly ¥120–202.5 billion) in 2025, approximately $3.24 billion (roughly ¥486 billion, CAGR 32.4%) in 2030, and $8.44 billion (roughly ¥1.266 trillion) in 2033. An estimated 2.1 million autonomous urban delivery vehicles are expected to be in operation by 2034, with rapid growth projected at a CAGR of 60%.
The drone delivery market is forecast to expand from approximately $0.97–3.47 billion (roughly ¥145.5–520.5 billion) in 2025 to $4.78–33.4 billion (roughly ¥717 billion–¥5.01 trillion) in 2030. The Asia-Pacific region leads with the highest CAGR of 41.2% and is expected to become the largest regional market by 2030.
The comparison in delivery costs is clear: while a human delivery worker costs approximately $10.1 per delivery, autonomous delivery robots cost less than €1 per delivery, achieving cost reductions of up to 70%.
The scale of the Chinese market stands out. Revenue from autonomous delivery suppliers is expected to grow from 35.2 billion RMB (approximately $4.9 billion, roughly ¥735 billion) in 2026 to 373.4 billion RMB (approximately $51.9 billion, roughly ¥7.785 trillion) in 2030.
Major Tech Companies' Moves — Building the Ecosystem
Major tech and logistics companies are also accelerating the development of autonomous last-mile delivery ecosystems.
Amazon continues to invest in Prime Air drones even after discontinuing Scout, targeting the delivery of 500 million packages per year by 2030. In its warehouses, it operates more than one million robots (including Sparrow, Sequoia, and Agility Robotics' Digit). Jeff Bezos articulates his vision of last-mile as an integrated system: "It's not about drones, or robots, or autonomous vans. It's about making them dance together."
Walmart has formed multi-faceted partnerships with Wing (with plans to expand to more than 270 stores), Zipline, and Gatik (fully driverless trucks), setting a goal of "providing drone delivery in most areas where we operate."
JD.com (China) plans to procure 3 million robots, 1 million autonomous vehicles, and 100,000 drones over a five-year plan. Collaboration with Rakuten on unmanned delivery solutions in Japan is also advancing.
Japan — The World's Most Urgent Need
Japan is the country in the world where the "need" for autonomous delivery is most urgent, driven by an aging society and a severe labor shortage.
The "Logistics 2024 Problem" (the tightening of regulations on overtime work for drivers in April 2024) is projected to result in a 14% shortfall in transport capacity in 2024 and a 34% shortfall by 2030. More than 500,000 driver positions are unfilled or at risk, and over one-third of packages may become undeliverable by 2030.
The Japanese government is actively building the legal framework. The revision of the Road Traffic Act in April 2023 legalized Level 4 autonomous delivery robots on public sidewalks, and in February 2025, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced a roadmap titled "Future Vision for Autonomous Delivery Robots."
Efforts by Japanese companies are also accelerating. Panasonic developed the autonomous delivery robot "Hakobo" and obtained Japan's first permit in January 2025 to simultaneously operate 10 units on public roads across multiple regions. Equipped with AI functionality allowing a single operator to manage 10 robots simultaneously, it is deployed in Fujisawa, Kadoma, and Saga. ZMP developed the food delivery robot "CarriRo Rover" and has continued joint demonstration experiments with Japan Post since 2017. Rakuten launched Japan's first commercial drone delivery service in 2019, and in February 2025 conducted an over-sea drone delivery test crossing 5.5 km off the coast of Mie Prefecture (approximately 15 minutes, carrying up to 5 kg of groceries). The service also accommodates elderly customers by supporting paper catalog and phone orders, as well as cash payments.
International collaboration is also advancing, with Cartken entering the Japanese market through a partnership with Mitsubishi, and JD.com and Rakuten cooperating on drones and autonomous delivery robots. Toyota's Woven City (currently under construction at the foot of Mt. Fuji, scheduled to open in the second half of 2025) is drawing attention as the world's first robot city where autonomous vehicles serve as the primary mode of transportation and goods are delivered via an underground logistics network.
Challenges and Risks — Not Just Optimism
The revival of autonomous last-mile delivery is clear, but there are still many challenges to overcome.
Weather conditions (rain, snow, extreme heat) place stress on sensors, traction, and batteries, while weatherproofing enhancements become factors driving up weight and costs. There are also risks of theft and vandalism, with videos of delivery robots being kicked or destroyed spreading on social media. In some areas, residents have filed complaints or demanded bans over sidewalk occupation.
As of Q3 2025, more than 5,000 robots are active, but the concentration is a challenge—California and Texas account for 60% of deployments. Compatibility with urban infrastructure (sidewalk quality, curb cuts, crosswalks) also varies significantly by region. Legal frameworks for insurance and liability remain unresolved in many areas.
Future Trends — Multimodal and Convergence
The keywords for the future of autonomous last-mile delivery are "multimodal" and "convergence."
There are forecasts that autonomous delivery systems will handle more than 40% of global last-mile logistics by 2027. By 2030, approximately 25,000 autonomous trucks are expected to be deployed in commercial fleets, with 70% of them electrified.
The most important trend is the convergence of middle-mile (between distribution centers) and last-mile (delivery to customers) logistics. End-to-end integration of Gatik's middle-mile autonomous trucks with Serve/Starship's last-mile robots is advancing, and a "multimodal delivery chain" — warehouse robots → autonomous vans → sidewalk robots — is taking shape. Jeff Bezos's vision of "making robots dance" is becoming a reality.
If Jensen Huang's (NVIDIA CEO) prophecy that "the ChatGPT moment for Physical AI is coming" proves correct, autonomous last-mile delivery will be one of its most tangible manifestations.
Impact on the Industry
First, autonomous last-mile delivery has irreversibly transitioned from the "experimentation" phase to the "commercial scale" phase. The track records of Starship (9 million deliveries), Zipline (2 million deliveries, $7.6 billion valuation), Serve Robotics (9.6x revenue growth), and Gatik (60,000 driverless orders completed without incident) represent commercial businesses, not proof-of-concept projects.
Second, the demonstrated unit economics have become a game changer. Compared to $10 per human delivery, robots cost under €1 per delivery — this 70% cost reduction has the potential to transform the cost structure of the entire logistics industry in last-mile delivery, which accounts for 53% of total delivery costs.
Third, a structural driver shortage (3.6 million unfilled positions worldwide, Japan's logistics "2024 problem") is turning autonomous delivery from an "option" into an "inevitability." McKinsey's prediction that "80% of parcels will be delivered by autonomous vehicles" is no longer a distant future scenario.
Fourth, due to the urgency of its aging population and labor shortage, Japan could become an "inevitable lead market" for autonomous delivery. The 2023 revision of the Road Traffic Act, METI's national roadmap, and the pioneering cases of Panasonic, Rakuten, and ZMP are forming the foundation for this. Faced with projections that 34% of transport capacity will be lacking by 2030, autonomous delivery may become the "last line of defense" saving Japan's logistics.
References: SmartRoutes Last-Mile Delivery Statistics (2025), MIT Sloan "Cutting Last-Mile Delivery Costs", Onfleet Last Mile Delivery Costs, IRU Driver Shortage Report, Shopify Global Ecommerce Statistics, ECDB Global Parcel Market (2025), ClickPost Same-Day Delivery Statistics, Scientific American Delivery Vehicle Pollution, Starship Technologies Series C Announcement & Uber Eats Partnership, Serve Robotics SEC Filings & Press Releases (NASDAQ: SERV), Coco Robotics Fleet Data, Cartken Robotics Profitability Report, Kiwibot/Robot.com Rebrand, Nuro Series E Financing & Lucid-Uber Robotaxi Announcement, Gatik Fully Driverless at Scale (BusinessWire), Udelv Transporter Specifications, Wing FAA Part 135 & Walmart 270-Store Expansion (SupplyChainDive), Zipline Series H Funding (TechCrunch), Amazon Prime Air MK30 & FAA BVLOS Approval, Manna Aero Dublin Operations, Matternet FAA Type Certificate, JD Logistics Five-Year Plan (TechNode), The Wire China "China's Delivery Revolution", METI "Automated Delivery Robots" (2023/2025), Panasonic HAKOBO 10-Robot Simultaneous Operation, Rakuten Drone Delivery Tests, ZMP CarriRo Rover, Toyota Woven City, NVIDIA CES 2026 & GTC 2026 Keynotes (Jensen Huang), Waymo 2025 Year in Review, McKinsey Autonomous Delivery Predictions, MarketsandMarkets Delivery Robot Market Report, Mordor Intelligence Drone Package Delivery Market, Grand View Research Autonomous Delivery Robot Market, Transforma Insights Autonomous Urban Delivery Vehicles, Robotics and Automation News VC in Robotics (2025), Deloitte Last Mile Delivery Landscape, NHTSA AV Framework (2025), FAA Part 108 BVLOS Rulemaking, EU U-space Regulation (2021/664), Eno Center AV Federal Policy (2025), FedEx Roxo Shutdown / Amazon Scout Shutdown (Robotics247), Japan Road Traffic Act Revision (April 2023), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry "Future Outlook for Autonomous Delivery Robots" (February 2025), Reports on Japan's Logistics "2024 Problem", Japan Immigration & Driver Shortage Reports