Shenzhen’s train stations are bustling with passengers coming and going during the day, but when night falls they fill up with another type of traffic: robovans. They are small autonomous vehicles that are dedicated to delivering packages and are increasingly common in China.
Robovans. If we call autonomous taxis robotaxis, it is fair to call ‘robovans’ that way. They count in Nikkei Asia These small vans have a capacity of 3 cubic meters and their maximum load is 500kg. They move slowly and emit an audible signal to avoid colliding with pedestrians. If they detect anyone closer than two meters, they stop. Its objective is to transport packages to the platforms, where operators load them onto trains and then deliver them to a logistics center.
Neolix. It is the company that has deployed the most robovans to date. It is headquartered in Beijing and on your website They boast that they have already deployed 10,000 units in 300 cities, across fifteen countries. According to its president, Will Zhao, they expect the number to increase to 10 million robovans in the next ten years.
Challenges. Despite Neolix’s enthusiasm, the reality is that autonomous delivery has quite a few limitations. The most notable is that the robovans are much slower than human delivery drivers. Furthermore, at the moment they are quite limited to closed spaces such as stations or airports and involve quite a high expense. According to Zhao, they hope to increase the speed as they become safer, until they reach the point where they are more effective than traditional delivery.
Leaders. It makes sense that China is leading autonomous delivery because it is also a leader in online shopping. According to data from the China State Post Office, In 2024, 5,400 packages were distributed per second and the average was 100 packages per person per year. To put it in context, in 2024 in the United States the average was 66 packages per year per person.
Price war. Competing in the largest online commerce market in the world causes price wars between different companies to be fierce. The market continues to grow and the volume of packages is enormous, but profit margins are very small. Some of these companies are JD Logistics, ZTO Express, SF Holding, ZTO Express and Meituan.
Immediate delivery. Overnight shipping may seem fast to us, but in China it is unacceptable for most consumers. Companies are investing a lot of resources in same day deliveriessome even in just half an hour.
This pressure especially affects food delivery, where there is a price war that is causing losses for companies like Meituan or JD.com and also for the restaurants themselves, who are forced to carry out very aggressive online promotions with ridiculous margins. They count on Bloombergthat there are cafes that need to send eight orders to equal the profit they would obtain from a single in-person sale.
Image | Neolix
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