BrightDrop Innovates Last-mile Delivery

The GM spinoff's holistic set of solutions aims to help boost productivity and improve safety, while cutting fleet costs, street congestion and emissions.

On a city street, two delivery vans are unloading cargo. One driver carries a package out of his van and delivers it inside an apartment building. Then he returns for another and carries it in. Then another and another, lugging the heaviest ones on a hand dolly while dodging traffic. Then he carries back an outgoing package.

Across the street, the other driver unloads an enclosed, wheeled pallet and grabs a handle on its side. She guides the box-like pallet with little effort - it's motor-driven - to an office building. A few minutes later, she returns, rolls the first box back into her van, unloads another one and guides it to the building next door. Shortly she's back to wheel that second box into the van. The stop completed, she drives away quietly in the electric van, while her counterpart across the street is still moving packages one or two at a time.