Uber Eats delivery robots spotted rolling through Philadelphia, drawing hitchBOT comparisons

Autonomous food delivery robots bearing Avride branding and Uber Eats stickers have been spotted on Philadelphia sidewalks, drawing immediate comparisons to hitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot famously dismembered in the city in 2015.

A post on the r/PhiladelphiaEats subreddit Friday morning showed a robot in Old City, with the user writing, “Robot delivery bot spotted last night in Old City. No word if it made it through the night, unlike the last one.”

A second post Friday night on r/philadelphia drew more than 500 comments, with the user asking whether the company had “never heard of what happened to HitchBot in Philly.”

The sightings have also circulated on Instagram, where the account @phillychitchat shared a video earlier this month, and on Facebook, where the page The Philly Captain posted a video with the caption, “Delivery Robots have invaded Philadelphia.”

Has this robot company never heard of what happened to HitchBot in Philly???
by u/clicks_ in philadelphia

Neither Avride, the Austin, Texas-based robotics company that manufactures the robots, nor Uber confirmed the Philadelphia deployment. Avride did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The robots appear to be operating through Uber Eats as part of a multiyear partnership between Avride and Uber, announced in October 2024. Through that agreement, Avride’s autonomous sidewalk robots deliver restaurant orders placed on the Uber Eats app in select cities.

Philadelphia would be the fourth U.S. city for Avride’s Uber Eats delivery robots, following Austin, Dallas and Jersey City, N.J. The Jersey City launch in February 2025 was the company’s first East Coast deployment.

Reddit users reported multiple sightings across Center City and Old City over the past couple of weeks, including near Rittenhouse Square, at 8th and Market streets and at 19th and Market streets.

One commenter said they had spotted the robots roughly five times. Another reported seeing one flipped on its back at 4th and Arch streets.

It remains unclear how many robots are operating in the city or which neighborhoods are officially included in the service area.

Avride’s robots are about the size of a carry-on suitcase and travel along sidewalks at speeds of up to 5 mph. They are equipped with lidar, cameras and ultrasonic sensors and can detect obstacles from up to 200 feet away, according to Avride. Each robot can carry up to 55 pounds and operates on a swappable battery with a range of up to 31 miles.

When a customer orders through the Uber Eats app in a participating area, they may be offered the option to have a robot deliver their meal.

The customer can track the robot in real time and unlock its insulated cargo compartment through the app upon arrival. No tip is charged for robot deliveries.

Uber Eats has completed hundreds of thousands of robot deliveries across more than 10 U.S. cities through partnerships with several robotics companies, including Avride, Serve Robotics, Coco Robotics and Cartken, according to Uber.

Avride is one of several companies deploying sidewalk delivery robots across the country. Serve Robotics operates more than 2,000 robots in cities including Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, while Coco Robotics runs fleets in Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. All three partner with Uber Eats.

The Philadelphia sightings come as delivery robots face growing scrutiny nationwide. An NPR report earlier this month highlighted pushback in Chicago, where residents have circulated petitions calling on the city to pause its sidewalk robot program over concerns about pedestrian safety and accessibility.

One Reddit commenter in the Philadelphia thread raised similar concerns, writing that the robots “clog up pedestrian pathways and pretty consistently keep sidewalks from being ADA compliant.”

The robots also arrive in a city with an established, if tongue-in-cheek, history of animosity toward autonomous machines. In August 2015, hitchBOT — a child-sized Canadian robot attempting to hitchhike across the United States — was found vandalized beyond repair on a Philadelphia street after just two weeks on the road.

That legacy was not lost on commenters. Many joked about tipping the robots over or stripping them for parts, while others questioned whether the machines could handle Philadelphia’s notoriously uneven sidewalks and potholes.

One commenter who said they recently moved back from Los Angeles wrote that the robots are common there, adding that when flipped upside down “they make the R2D2 wilhelm scream.”

Others raised practical concerns. One user questioned how a business could use public sidewalks for its vehicles, while another worried about the impact on entry-level delivery jobs.

“Let’s see it try to do a pothole,” one user wrote.