Driverless Last-Mile Delivery Product: Users, Handoff, Safety and Launch

You are a product manager at a company that builds autonomous vehicle technology. Design a last-mile delivery offering that uses this technology: the final leg that takes an order from a local hub, store or warehouse to the person who ordered it. ```hint Solve the last few steps A vehicle can drive itself to the curb, but something still has to get the order from the vehicle into the recipient's hands. Decide early how that handoff works, because it shapes the vehicle, the cost and the experience. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Who is the paying customer: retailers and parcel carriers that already have delivery volume, or consumers ordering directly from us? - What will be delivered: parcels, groceries, restaurant meals or prescriptions, each with different size, temperature and timing needs? - Should the offering reuse the company's existing self-driving system, and how mature is that system on residential streets compared with highways? - Which areas come first: dense city centers, suburbs or rural towns? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Everyone in the delivery chain (shipper, recipient, operations staff, other road users and cities), with a reasoned choice of whom to serve first. - Options for the vehicle-to-recipient handoff, compared on cost, experience and technical readiness, ending in a clear choice. - Safety, the vehicle's operating limits and regulation treated as design inputs rather than afterthoughts. - A phased launch with success metrics, unit economics and safety guardrails. ### Follow-up Questions - Many recipients do not reach the vehicle before it has to leave for its next stop. How would you change the product? - How would you decide when to remove safety drivers and run fully driverless in a new city? - How would the design change for rural routes where stops are miles apart?