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Deployment

Cartken Courier at New York

Cartken (Oakland, California; founded 2019 by ex-Google engineers from the Bookbot project, led by CEO Christian Bersch; about $22.5 million raised from investors including Magna International, Shell Ventures, and Mitsubishi Electric) makes six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. Its Cartken Courier is the original sidewalk bot carrying about 44 pounds at 3 to 6 miles per hour, joined by the larger industrial Cartken Hauler with a 660-pound payload and an indoor Cartken Runner.

It ran campus and food sidewalk delivery at scale, including a 41-robot fleet at the University of Arizona via Grubhub and Uber Eats service in Miami and Tokyo, but in July 2025 it pivoted its growth focus from last-mile food delivery to industrial robotics, with food delivery continuing but no longer expanding. The registry records it at commercial maturity with a finding that corrects the sector's captive-service premise: Cartken is not a classic captive operator, its legacy campus business was robots-as-a-service, and its forward business is industrial robot sales, anchored by a multi-million-dollar order from Melco, a Mitsubishi Electric Group company, for nearly 100 Cartken Hauler robots placed on June 25, 2025, an outright sale rather than a service, following a first industrial customer in Germany's ZF Lifetec in 2023.

The frequently cited figure of more than 50,000 orders at the University of Arizona is company and BusinessWire PR, with Grubhub corroborating the program but not the count, and the current fleet size, total lifetime deliveries, whether the roughly 100 Haulers have actually been deployed rather than merely ordered, and whether the Miami service is still live in 2026 are not verified.

Cartken Courier by Cartken · Machine verified · Sidewalk delivery

Track Cartken Courier at New York

Recent coverage

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Retired 2026-10-01. DoorDash partnered with Cartken for sidewalk delivery in New York City beginning in 2022, but Cartken bots are no longer at New York City Hall and NYC no longer permits sidewalk delivery robots under rules against motor vehicles on sidewalks. Status set to ended. Tip credited to Christine St. Jeanos (NYU graduate student, magazine journalism).

Key facts

Fleet
Cartken Courier sidewalk robots
Operator
Cartken
Partner
DoorDash
Coverage
New York City
Start
2022
Use Case
Food deliveries to customers

Exposure

Customer segment
consumer
Scale tier
pilot lt10

Each exposure value carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.

Safety record

No incidents on record for Cartken Courier at New York.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Trust tier
Machine verifiedhow tiers work →
Last updated
2026-10-01
Model
Cartken Courier
Company
Cartken
Location
United States/New York/New York
Operator
Cartken
Status
ended
Operator type
maker operated
Scale at site
2 to 10 units
Site environment
outdoor
Location precision
verified coordinates
First seen
2022-08-01
ID
92d7b72a-b50e-4420-87f3-53ed614962b3

Timeline

  1. Aug 2022
    First recorded
    Cartken Courier first documented operating at New York.
  2. Oct 2026
    status change
    status: operational → ended
  3. Oct 2026
    Current status: ended, reviewed
    Latest recorded state. New status transitions append here as the deployment-status recorder produces them.

On the deployment map

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Cartken Courier operates in New York. Explore the full verified map:

Verifications (1)

  • Machine verified by DEPLOY editor (Ben Smith) — reader tip from Christine St. Jeanos2026-10-01

    Evidence: mailto:corrections@deploy.report

    asOf
    2026-10-01
    basis
    Reader tip (Christine St. Jeanos): Cartken not at NYC City Hall; NYC prohibits sidewalk delivery bots under motor-vehicle-on-sidewalks rules. Confirmed by editor 2026-09-29; tipster accepted public credit 2026-09-30.
    status
    ended
    tipCredit
    Christine St. Jeanos

Sources (2)

  1. DoorDash: Robot Delivery Comes to New York City with Cartken · https://doordash.news/consumer/doordash-robot-delivery-new-york/
  2. The Verge: DoorDash brings delivery robots to NYC with Cartken, 2022 · https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/23/23316850/doordash-delivery-robot-new-york-city-cartken
Methodology: Verified · 2 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-10-01

Verification posture

Verified

Low confidence

Review state

Stable

Last reviewed 2026-10-01

Maturity + lifecycle

Maturity stage: commercial

Lifecycle: active

Architectural position

Cohort: sidewalk

Sources by quality tier

1
unclassified
Unclassified source
1
secondary-industry-publication
Industry publication

The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.

Methodology surface for Cartken Courier at New York.

Common questions

What is the Cartken Courier deployment at New York?
Cartken Courier, built by Cartken, is recorded as a deployment at New York on the DEPLOY registry. Cartken operates the deployment directly.
Who operates Cartken Courier at New York?
Cartken, the manufacturer of Cartken Courier, operates this deployment directly. This is a maker-deploys-its-own-product arrangement rather than a customer pilot.
When did the Cartken Courier deployment at New York go live?
The deployment is recorded as starting August 1, 2022 on the DEPLOY registry. Earlier activity may exist but is not yet sourced.
Is the Cartken Courier deployment at New York still active?
As of the most recent verification on the DEPLOY registry, this deployment is no longer operating at this location.
Have there been incidents at the Cartken Courier deployment at New York?
No active incidents affecting this deployment are recorded on the DEPLOY registry. Absence of recorded incidents is not a guarantee no incident occurred; DEPLOY records only sourced incidents and suppresses retracted ones.

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