London-based Minimal has unveiled one of the UK’s first autonomous delivery robots designed for the road rather than the pavement.
Dubbed Bot, the compact electric vehicle will begin on-road trials in Q2 2027 on defined routes under remote supervision. The first customer pilots are expected to follow in Q4 2027.
Bot is built to carry hot food, small grocery orders, medical supplies and parcels for multiple businesses in a single run, with a modular storage hold that can be configured for different loads. It is assembled at Minimal’s factory in West London, with both the vehicle and its autonomy software developed in-house. The Bot has a payload of 200kg with 800 litres of cargo space and a range of 90km.
Minimal was founded in 2023 and launched with a commercial e-cargo bike, the Pedal 4, before expanding into other last-mile delivery vehicles.
Minimal’s driving model for Bot learns on virtual streets and is supplemented by data from real-world driving. It trains on Isambard, the University of Bristol’s supercomputer, which Minimal has access to through a compute grant. Minimal claims that building the vehicle and software together will let it develop a safe system faster.
The reveal comes as the UK delivery robot market heats up. Coco Robotics, which has around 1,000 robots in the US and Helsinki, began operating in London’s Canary Wharf last month through an exclusive partnership with Deliveroo, with four more UK areas to follow. Starship Technologies, long the UK’s incumbent, has a fleet of roughly 300 delivery robots and operates in cities including Milton Keynes, Leeds and Barnsley, partnering with platforms like Just Eat, Uber Eats and Co-op. Both companies operate on pavements while Minimal is preparing to join the road.
Minimal said Bot carries 20 times less kinetic energy than a car. A separate safety controller sits beneath the self-driving model, enforces speed limits and can override the AI to bring the vehicle to a controlled stop at the kerbside.
Liam Sill, Minimal’s CTO, said the company’s ambition is to “scale autonomy into cities around the world”, with the UK, Europe and the US first.
