Last mile delivery

Home Depot, a Roadie customer, takes financial stake in delivery firm.

Proceeds to fund service expansion.

Hong Kong-based Lalamove promises same-day deliveries in under an hour. The company has just closed a $300 million round of funding to expand its geographic footprint further.

TFI International Inc. wants to expand its last-mile business with the assets of U.S. courier BeavEX, which is seeking bankruptcy protection.

J.B. Hunt has closed its acquisition of Cory 1st Choice Home Delivery, adding the last-mile business to its Final Mile Services Division.

Jacobs now must manage through loss of $600 million of his largest customer’s business.

Food delivery startup Zomato is mobilising its last-mile workforce to move towards mechanical and electric bikes for delivery – a move that the company believes would drastically reduce its carbon footprint.

TechCrunch reports that SoftBank, a Japanese multinational holding group, has led a $940 million investment in autonomous delivery startup Nuro.

General Motors plans to go all-electric in the future but does not expect profits until early next decade; Amazon is all set to move into the last-mile delivery segment; Tesla and Mercedes-Benz might collaborate over electric van development.

New vans to hit roads in New York, California.

Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, is stuck in the same day, played out over and over again, in the film Groundhog Day. He repeats each day until he gets it right. In the real world, we don’t get the chance at a “do-over,” but delivery operations present an opportunity to do very nearly that.

Nova Dynamics is testing DAX the robot in the tiny town of Philomath, population 4,760.

The Quadrobot is a modular design autonomous delivery vehicle, launching this year in both China and the U.S.

The rise of ecommerce has brought it a lot more last-mile vehicles to the urban streets, making them an integral part of the traffic congestion problems that cities face. But there are initiatives that the city administration can work on to alleviate this situation.

The New Jersey company will go into Hunt’s Dedicated Services unit.

The udelv autonomous delivery vehicle, with an electric range of about 60 miles, will enter a pilot program with XL Parts in Houston.

USPS should avoid the heavy stuff like this, consultant says.

Zoof-It, a Netherlands-based company that provides a last-mile blockchain platform that instantly rewards for parcel delivery in a convenient, inexpensive and responsible way, has joined the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).

Google Search becomes part of XPO’s last-mile tracking portfolio.

Last-mile delivery is especially difficult for oversized items such as furniture, where retailers face challenges with rising customer expectations in speed, flexibility and quality.