The Driverless Digest: DoorDash's Autonomous Delivery Strategy with Ashu Rege

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Ashu Rege, Vice President of DoorDash Labs at DoorDash. Ashu shares his journey through the autonomous vehicle industry, including roles at NVIDIA and Zoox, before leading autonomy efforts within one of the largest delivery platforms in the world.

We dive into what drew him to DoorDash Labs and how the team is thinking about autonomy differently from robotaxi companies. Ashu explains the origins of DoorDash's delivery robot DOT, the goals of the DoorDash Labs, and how their Autonomous Delivery Platform (ADP) is designed to support a wide range of delivery modalities. The conversation explores what makes autonomous delivery fundamentally different from human delivery, how mature DoorDash's delivery solutions are today, and the different categories of autonomy DoorDash is pursuing.

We also get into the economics of autonomous delivery and the unique problems autonomy is best suited to solve in delivery. Ashu breaks down how DOT operates in the real world, including its limitations and where it stands out the most. Finally, we look ahead to what's next for DoorDash and DoorDash Labs' autonomy efforts over the coming year, including how the company is balancing partnerships with in‑house development.

Chapters

• (00:00) Introduction to Ashu Rege

• (02:47) Ashu's background in the AV industry (Nvidia, Zoox, and DoorDash).

• (04:30) What excited Ashu about joining DoorDash Labs, and its autonomy goals.

• (05:43) The story behind the creation of DOT and its perks

• (08:23) The goal of DoorDash Labs and what they do

• (09:18) DoorDash Labs' Autonomous Delivery Platform (ADP) explained.

• (10:34) One key difference between an autonomous delivery solution and a human.

• (11:52) How commercially mature are DoorDash's autonomous delivery solutions?

• (12:54) DoorDash's autonomous delivery categories, and how they compare to each other.

• (14:29) Why is now the right time to scale autonomy in delivery, and how autonomous delivery differs from robotaxis.

• (18:30) How DoorDash approaches the balance between partnering and building autonomous delivery solutions in-house.

• (23:31) How autonomous deliveries compare to human deliveries in cost, and the unique problem autonomous deliveries solve.

• (25:20) How autonomous deliveries work using DOT, its limitations, and where it stands out.

• (35:11) What to expect from DoorDash and DoorDash Labs over the next year in autonomy.

• (36:52) Conclusions and final thoughts

Notes/Links:

• You can find Ashu on LinkedIn.

• DOT is DoorDash's first in-house autonomous delivery robot. You can find more info about it here (link).

• DoorDash Labs is DoorDash's robotics and automation arm. You can find more info about them on their website (link).

  • Open roles at DoorDash Labs (link).

-Harry