DoorDash announced a partnership with Waymo yesterday to deliver groceries and prepared food using autonomous vehicles in Phoenix. Testing starts now. Broader commercial operations launch later this year.
The setup is straightforward. DoorDash customers order from participating merchants. The app matches some orders to a Waymo vehicle instead of a human courier. The vehicle arrives. Customers unlock the trunk with the DoorDash app. Grab their order. Done.
Waymo's fleet will start with DashMart, DoorDash's owned convenience and grocery stores. The company plans to add more Phoenix merchants over time across the 315 square mile service area.
This isn't new ground. Uber Eats launched a similar partnership with Waymo in Phoenix in April 2024 focused on restaurant delivery. DoorDash is now the second food delivery platform using Waymo's vehicles.
The business case is clear. Autonomous vehicles fill gaps when human couriers are scarce or deliveries are unprofitable. DoorDash already uses sidewalk robots from Serve Robotics and recently unveiled Dot, its own delivery robot. Add drones to the mix. The company is building what it calls an "Autonomous Delivery Platform" that dispatches orders to the right vehicle type using AI.
Waymo brings scale. The Alphabet subsidiary has logged over 100 million autonomous miles on public roads and completed more than 10 million paid trips. Its vehicles operate in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, and Atlanta, with plans to launch in Miami, Washington D.C., Dallas, and London by 2026.
The deal includes a promotional angle. DashPass members in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco get $10 off one Waymo ride per month through December 31, 2025. DoorDash gets exposure for its delivery automation. Waymo fills downtime between passenger rides with delivery runs. Both sides win.
DoorDash stock jumped 3% on the news.
The bigger picture: Food delivery companies see automation as necessary to meet growing demand while keeping costs down. Human couriers handle high-value, long-distance orders. Robots and autonomous vehicles tackle shorter runs and bulk grocery orders.
Waymo uses this to prove autonomous vehicles work for more than just rides. Each delivery mile adds training data. Each successful drop-off builds consumer trust. The company already has the infrastructure, regulatory approvals, and operational experience in Phoenix. Adding delivery is an incremental expansion, not a moonshot.
Why this matters: The multi-modal delivery future isn't coming. It's here. Sidewalk robots handle campus deliveries. Drones serve rural areas. Autonomous cars move groceries in cities. Human couriers fill the gaps. Companies that master orchestrating all these options at scale win the last-mile logistics game.
Phoenix becomes the testing ground because Waymo has operated there since 2017. The city's grid layout, favorable weather, and autonomous-friendly regulations make it ideal for deployment. What works in Phoenix eventually scales to denser, more complex cities.
DoorDash hasn't disclosed how many deliveries will use Waymo or which specific merchants beyond DashMart will participate. Those numbers matter more than the partnership announcement. Until we see volume data and economics, this remains a test, not a transformation.