innovation takes time. There's no obvious reason to me that automated deliveries can't materialize in the future.
You might be right, but you should have pretty high uncertainty about that claim.
If driverless tech reduces the delivery cost down 10x, the average consumer might be very willing to walk out to the street. Some might even do it in the rain (umbrella, etc).
I'm not trying to fault the driver for not locating my unit, not do I enjoy sounding like an entitled bourgeois snoot, but it definitely makes the delivery experience less-than-complete. I imagine the last 20-meter problem will be a much higher barrier for those who are experiencing mobility-related challenges, and it is indeed a real problem to be solved.
The biggest challenge I see is discovering and navigating to the appropriate place for the vehicle to wait for a customer to come down and pick up their order. Just thinking about my building, there’s a turnaround with a ton of non-obvious cues as to where taxis and Ubers are supposed to wait, and it’s shared with a public parking garage and a restaurant with a valet stand. An AV is pretty much guaranteed to get it wrong, and Nuro needs a way for door staff or valets to tell it where to go.