The E-commerce giant Amazon has halted testing its home delivery robot “Scouts,” Amazon’s latest attempt to make delivery autonomous. According to Amazon, the battery-powered robots are a part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its delivery operations.
However, the company is lowering its experimental efforts due to the slump in sales. The company is only reacting to the slumped growth in its retail segment by delaying some of its less responsive initiatives, as per CEO Andy Jassy.
Robot Scouts, the six-wheeled, cooler-sized vehicles intended to deliver goods to the front door, will reportedly be placed on hold for the time being, but Amazon has said that it may revisit the concept in the future. Although multiple witnesses stated that the robots had trouble getting around debris or other small objects on the pavement, the company declined to elaborate on why the halt occurred.
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The robots were designed to stop at a front door during the testing and snap open their lids to allow a customer to pick up a present. Before extending trials to Southern California and Tennessee, Amazon began testing its color-sized robots on the streets of suburban Seattle.
Alisa Carroll, an Amazon Spokesperson, said that the company learned through feedback that the program was not meeting customer expectations.
Amazon also discontinued Glow, its child-based gaming service with video calling features, not only the robot scouts. The company is also planning to shut down Amazon Care, its telehealth service, after acquiring One Medical.
