Yandex.Rovers complete 1,500 autonomous deliveries

Today we are celebrating an important milestone for our autonomous delivery project. Yandex.Rovers have completed over 1,500 deliveries to customers, covering more than 6,000 kilometers since regular delivery service was launched at the end of 2020. They’ve been making deliveries from restaurants, grocery stores and offices (documents) in Moscow, Innopolis and Skolkovo, three cities in Russia. These Yandex.Rover deliveries were made autonomously, irrespective of weather conditions that vary widely in Russia, and were undeterred by busy intersections and rush hour crowds.

We’ve learned a lot via these first 1,500 deliveries — the knowhow that was reflected in the recent Yandex.Rover construction upgrade. Our new and improved delivery robots now have more storage space and can operate for up to 10 hours even in cold weather conditions without having to be recharged. Their storage cases now also open automatically via a button in our app. These improved rovers are already delivering orders to several locations in Russia.

We are also continuing to expand our autonomous delivery coverage area. Our Yadex.Eats food delivery and Yandex.Lavka express grocery delivery services provide us with an incredible amount of data about demand for delivery services and how it varies throughout Moscow, Russia’s largest city that is home to 12.7 million people. Leveraging and analyzing this data allows us to bring autonomous delivery to those locations, where it’s needed the most and helps more customers to receive their lunch and other orders as soon as possible.