As busy office workers in Beijing, what to eat for breakfast and lunch is a big problem. The far distance between the restaurants and us makes us not want to eat in the restaurant. How about some takeout? We will worry about the clean conditions and environment of the restaurant. But now we can have a new choice. The answer is an unmanned dining car. Recently, a series of crewless dining cars appeared on the streets of Beijing.

In the early morning, the users working in Beijing began to try unmanned dining cars excitedly. The users waved in front of the crewless dining car, and it stopped immediately. Users could choose what to eat through the transparent window of the dining car, arrange orders by touching the screen, and eat a steaming breakfast in just a few seconds. The types of breakfast include steamed stuffed buns, dumplings, soybean milk, and so on.

In tracking the unmanned dining cars, we experienced two detours. For example, it could reach the destination by turning right through the red route, but the crewless dining car made a full circle at a traffic light cross before going to the destination through the greenway. This may be an error in road recognition.

After a day’s experience, we have a new understanding of the operational mode of the crewless dining car. We feel that more advanced driverless technology is changing our daily lives. For office workers, the advantages of cars are not that many, and it is unlikely that they will replace the traditional restaurant or takeout platform in a short time. On the other hand, the vehicle still needs to be upgraded, such as being equipped with exclusive driving license plates, more accurate road recognition, passers-by reminders, etc.

These unmanned dining cars are from Neolix, a startup focusing on autonomous driving technology. Neolix started the product R&D in 2016 and has commercially deployed in 30+ cities in China, including Bejing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xian, and Xiamen, and six international markets including Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand. In addition to providing people with food, unmanned cars like Neolix’s vehicles will give people a more convenient and faster travel experience. However, facing various realities such as limited product technology level, low social recognition, and policy constraints, I think there is still a long way to go for the unmanned car and autonomous driving technology.

CarNewsChina friends who gave us a tip for this service agreed the food is not great, not terrible. Did you try it already? Let us know what do you think!

Sources: Neolix