Alibaba’s delivery robots carries 1 millionth parcel in one year

The company is looking to expand its fleet to 10,000 robots.

Alibaba Group’s autonomous delivery robots have reached a new milestone, delivering more than a million parcels in China within just one year of their launch, the company announced in a media release.

Just 200 of the robots have carried parcels to more than 200,000 consumers in 52 cities across 22 Chinese provinces. Each robot, dubbed Xiaomanlv, can carry about 50 packages at a time and cover 100 kilometres on a single charge, delivering about 500 boxes per day.

Over the next three years, Alibaba expects to expand the fleet from 200 robots to 10,000 robots, which equates to handling an average of 1 million packages a day.

Alibaba’s exploration of autonomous driving technology dates back to 2015 when it sought to address last-mile delivery challenges as online shopping grew in popularity. Last year, it started piloting Xiaomanlv robots across China’s university campuses and communities.

The robot typically encounters more than 40 million obstacles each day but it can navigate its way more than 99.9% of the time without human intervention, according to Alibaba’s research arm DAMO Academy.