Yandex Plans to Produce 1,500 Courier Robots a Month for Cheap Delivery

Yandex intends to manufacture 1,500 delivery robots per month at its own factory and distribute them across cities with populations over one million to enable delivery in the budget segment. This was announced by Marat Mavlyutov, head of the company's robotic delivery direction, on RBS radio. He said that robot delivery would allow Yandex to segment delivery services by price, similar to taxi services. Economy delivery would require the customer to come down to the entrance to meet the rover, while a higher fee would bring a human courier. Currently, Yandex's delivery robots operate in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, and Nizhny Novgorod, with more than a thousand machines in use. By the end of 2027, Yandex expects to produce 20,000 rovers. Previously, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Transport, and the Federal Protective Service prepared and sent to the government a draft experimental legal regime for delivery robots. Under it, they would be banned from moving on sidewalks narrower than one meter, prohibited from accelerating above 25 km/h, and required to slow down to 6 km/h before pedestrian crossings and give priority to pedestrians.