Washington - Self-driving vehicles have yet to hit the road in a major
way, but Amazon already is exploring the technology's potential to change how
your packages are delivered.
Amazon is the nation's largest online retailer, and its
decisions not only turn heads but influence the entire retail and shipping
industries, analysts say. That means any foray into the self-driving arena -whether
as a developer or customer could have a significant effect on the technology's
adoption.
Amazon has assigned a dozen employees to determine how it
can use the technology as part of its business, the Wall Street Journal
reported Monday. It's unclear what shape Amazon's efforts will take or how far
along they might be, although the company has no plans to create its own
vehicles, according to the report.
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Nevertheless, the Amazon group offers an early indication
that big companies are preparing for the technology's impact.
Transportation experts anticipate that self-driving cars
will fundamentally alter the way people get around and the way company’s ship
goods, changes that stand to disrupt entire industries and leave millions of
professional drivers without jobs. The forthcoming shift has attracted the
money and attention of the biggest names in the technology and automotive
industries, including Apple, Uber, Google, Ford, General Motors and Tesla,
among others.
In particular, the technology could make long-haul shipping
cheaper and faster because, unlike human drivers, machines do not command a
salary or require down time. That would be important to Amazon, whose shipping
costs continue to climb as the company sells more products and ships them
faster, according to its annual report. Amazon even invested in its own fleet
of trucks in December 2015 to give the company greater control over
distribution.If Amazon adopts self-driving technology, it may push others
to do the same.
"When Amazon sneezes, everyone wakes up," said
Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group, a transportation and logistics
advisory firm.
The company said it shipped more than 1 billion items during
the 2016 holiday season.
An Amazon spokeswoman declined a request for an interview,
citing a "long-standing practice of not commenting on rumours and
speculation." The company's chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The
Washington Post.
Amazon has become something of a pioneer in home delivery,
in part by setting the standard for how quickly purchases arrive on your
doorstep. The company has begun using aerial drones in an effort to deliver goods
more quickly, completing its first successful flight to a customer in the United Kingdom
in December. Like self-driving vehicles, drones will need to overcome
regulatory hurdles before they're widely deployed.
In its warehouses, Amazon has used thousands of robots that
pull items from shelves and pack them. Last summer, Deutsche Bank analysts
found the robots reduced the time to fulfil an order from more than an hour to
15 minutes, according to business news site Quartz. They also saved Amazon
about $22 million per warehouse. Amazon acquired Kiva, the company that makes
the robots, in 2012 for $775 million.