Seems a bit of a publicity stunt as there must be a better way to do this than to drop logistics on to human subways? That being said inner city delivery bots are great idea. I'd see them all the time in Estonia a few years ago and food delivery should be entirely automated.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Estonia's delivery bots were a game changer - they reduced last-mile delivery costs by almost 40% in urban areas and had surprisingly good weather adaptibility, even in snow (though they did get stuck somtimes lol).
No it's "disruption", just offload all your delivery costs onto public mass transit infrastructure and fill up the subway cars with deliveries instead of people. Profit.
Tbf all delivery methods use public infrastructure.
Okay I guess I could phrase that better but this is the first time they've used public mass transit infrastructure that I've heard of. I will edit my comment to include the phrase "mass transit".
Yeah tbh that's kinda bad. I dont wan't delivery trucks in my subway
Meh, I think I like the idea of 1 truck pulling up to a docking bay, them all driving out the back and hopping on the mostly empty cars in slow times that are already going to the subway platforms where the deliveries need to go. It's either that or having to go through every subway entry point to drop them off. I think this will get flack because people are anti automation, but if it was people pushing carts to restock them manually I would still prefer them all getting in one vehicle to the subway and all getting on there and hopping off 1 at each stop. The product is all coming from one source, so why have 43 routes from place to sub station and then 43 routes back. If it is actually busy enough that it is holding up entry somewhere, having it in one location and streamlining it sounds nicer as well. It's not like the people can bring carts through turnstyles anyways, so they are already entering through a designated entry if the 7-11's are on the platforms. (They might not be, they could be elsewhere, but the article says downstairs).
Dozens of squat delivery robots have now begun riding subway trains across the network during off-peak hours, exiting at each station where a 7-Eleven is located to make deliveries, according to a report by local news outlet SZNews.
“In the past, delivery workers had to park above ground, unload goods, and manually push them into subway stations,” Li Yanyan, a manager at one of the 7-Eleven stores involved in the project, told SZNews. “Now, with robots, it’s much easier and more convenient.”
I think this is only for 7/11s that are part of the underground subway architecture? I don't think the robots would be cost effective compared to a truck if this was for restocking any old corner store.
Those Starship drones are cute as hell
more than 1,600 robotics companies.
In one city. Christ.
Shenzhen is huge and has an absurd amount of tech companies, so this doesn't really surprise me.
the city is in key national focus for prototyping modernization and creating a smart city.
China's government is handing out massive subsidies for everything called robotics. This causes the number of companies that claim to do robotics to be inflated
Same here in the US with AI, but instead of the government giving subsidies its venture capitalists.
industries tend to be more centralized in China. It's not that that's indicative of every city, more that Shenzhen already has easy access to the kind of manufacturing and products that a robotics company would find ideal.
It must be easy to start a business there
new copper golems be looking plastic
If the bots are required to have paid transit passes and if they're confined to off-peak hours when the subways aren't full anyway, this could actually be a net win for mass transit: they're putting money into the system while consuming relatively few resources, so the bots can fund improvements that benefit humans.
Yeah. Just need to make sure that sensible restrictions are in place to prevent the creep into turning a public service into primarily a commercial one. Starts out only running during off hours, then running during active hours at a reduced rate, then it's got dedicated cars for the robots, then it overflows into passenger cars... you see where it's going. Best to set up guard rails before it's a problem.
Good point. If trains are empty might as well use them.
They look like oversized iMacs on wheeled platforms.
China is awesome
Regardless of whether or not it's truly happening, can you say "Dystopia"?
Regardless of what country does it, I will absolutely call every country that replaces all humans with robo workers for mundane jobs like that dystopian.
I think all jobs that are able to be replaced by robots should be replaced, the dystopian factor is how capitalism deprives people of the ability to exist in doing so.
I'd call every society where the concept of a job still exists a dystopia.
We have the tools to start moving past that, question is how can you bridge the period in between.