Amazon is planning to make driverless delivery a reality and hence it is setting up a new
team in the UK to work on Amazon Scout, the media reported.
The new team created by Amazon will be based in Cambridge and will on Amazon
Scout, Amazon’s fully-electric autonomous delivery service.
Sean Scott, Vice President of Amazon Scout, wrote in a blog post, “Our investment in this
new Amazon Scout team in the UK, which will consist of dozens of engineers, is driven
by our partnership with the Cambridge community and made possible by the talented
people who live here.”
“The team in Cambridge will work closely with the Amazon Scout research lab in
Seattle, US to develop on-system software to help Scout delivery devices safely and
autonomously navigate around pedestrians, pets, and obstacles found in residential
neighbourhoods such as recycling bins and sign posts,” Scott said.
Amazon Scout is still in the field test mode and is being used in the US; however, with
growing demand in the UK as well, Amazon has decided to accelerate the development
of the programme in the UK as well.
Reportedly, Amazon is also planning to hire 7,000 new employee to work on a
permanent basis in the UK, bringing the total number hired by the company this year in
the country to 10,000.
Earlier this year, Amazon founder and world’s richest man Jeff Bezos invested in UK-
based logistics startup Beacon.
The startup raised around $15 million in its Series A funding round. Besides Jeff Bezos,
other participants in the funding round for Beacon include leading US venture capital
firm 8VC.