Autonomous vehicles have been talked about extensively over the past few years. Early on, fully autonomous vehicles that could drive themselves without any interaction from a driver were promised in 2020. It's 2021 and we're not there yet. Testing centers have been established in a number of cities, and there are some small starts. Houston has a pilot autonomous delivery service that has partnered with Kroger and CVS to deliver groceries or prescriptions in certain zip codes. Either an autonomous Prius or a custom-built driverless vehicle will drive to the customer's residence where the customer can retrieve his groceries or medications. Nuro is the company providing the vehicles for these tests; it is a robotics company working to improve the way people live through the use of robotics and artificial intelligence.

In December 2020 the company was the first to receive a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to deploy autonomous vehicles on public streets. The vehicles are allowed to operate commercially in two counties and once Nuro establishes a connection with a partner, delivery of products autonomously will begin.

The vehicles are called R2, and have been tested in three different states with no drivers, occupants or chase cars. The vehicles are small and designed to carry packages, not passengers. A number of states have made it legal for delivery robots to share streets and sidewalks with people, including Pennsylvania, Virginia, Idaho, Florida, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C.