How Swiss Startup LOXO is Overcoming Last Mile-Delivery Challenges - CEO Amin Amini

The Swiss startup LOXO believes it has an answer to the current challenges in the area of last mile delivery, such as low margins, high delivery costs, lack of drivers and carbon emissions. Its first autonomous vehicle is passenger-less and can be used for deliveries from the supplier to the end consumer or business customer. It is also suitable for hub-to-hub transportation.

Auto Futures recently caught up with Amin Amini, LOXO's co-founder and CEO.

"We all come from the automotive industry or production industry and with the specialities of the making complex systems safe. Before starting LOXO, we were working on different automation system, and then we have realised that a lot of companies struggle to make systems safe. This was our first spark. Then, after a few years of research, we have seen we can provide something new," says Amini.

The Bern-based company quickly decided to focus on the last-mile delivery sector.

"One of the biggest contributors to the traffic jams on the streets comes from delivery vans. We all know this. The governments know it. The concept that we have developed, beside being an automated vehicle, is a delivery concept. With the one round of delivery, we can cover up to 32 households, which means a reduction of traffic from 31 vehicles, which is enormous," he explains.

"Solving the autonomous driving challenge is a very big and great challenge. So removing passengers, simplifying the equation (is the) first thing. Secondly, in a country like Switzerland, we have public transport, which works well, while freight transportation is still lacking a lot of drivers. So scalability is a very big factor for our society. And that pushed us to go in that direction."

Autonomous Delivery as a Service

The company's first vehicle, LOXO Alpha, was presented to the public in December 2022. It is expected to be operating on Swiss roads in spring 2023.

"It's a totally unmanned, driverless vehicle. It's a road vehicle that goes on public roads. And the good thing is the whole system is fully connected, end-to-end. It means that when you order something this is not only the transportation part, this is something that you can communicate, you can track. So you really have the information as you need from the consumer. From the automation perspective, it is the workforce vehicle which does not use any rotation or rotational sensor. They have only solid states which brings additional safety capabilities," says Amini. 

LOXO Alpha is is equipped with a combination of radar, lidar, sonar, and camera. As a result, it detects people and objects in a 360-degree field of view. Any sign of danger immediately initiates an emergency stop.

The vehicle is coupled with a service called Autonomous Delivery as a Service (ADaaS).

"The companies who need this type of solution don't yet have the knowledge to use it very efficiently...So we said, instead of providing only a vehicle, let's provide them with a complete solution, which includes the vehicle and the operation centre, so that we provide them (with) a service to make the deliveries happens," he says.

A Marketplace For Mobility

Following the unveiling of the LOXO Alpha, the company announced it has chosen Innoviz Technologies to supply LiDAR sensors for its autonomous delivery vehicles.

InnovizOne is a solid-state LiDAR sensor designed speciifically for automakers, and robotaxi, shuttle and delivery companies.

In a press release, Omer Keilaf, Co-founder and CEO at Innoviz, comments: "In collaboration with LOXO, we look forward to enabling this critical service for users, especially during the busiest delivery days of the year, and revolutionizing the local transport of goods across cities worldwide."

"We have rigorously selected Innoviz' solution to equip our vehicles with the industry-leading LiDAR to ensure the highest levels of safety and operational efficiency," adds Amini. "InnovizOne is expertly engineered to be compact and seamlessly integrate into our electric vehicle design. It's accurate and high-performing, ensuring our vehicles navigate complex and obstacle-ridden urban road networks safely."

Amini told Auto Futures that a major new commercial partnership is in the pipeline.

"In the very, very near future we have a big commercial launch with a very big customer here in Switzerland. And this is the main focus of the company for the next commercial phase, which means we are going to deploy our solution on the public roads. for making day-to-day deliveries."

Finally, we asked Amini what mobility and logistics will look like by the end of the decade.

"I think it's going to be a marketplace. We will see different solutions because we have different solution with different advantages. We will see the conventional deliveries. We will see autonomous vehicles. Probably, for some special use cases, we will see also drones. Maybe for some industrial yard or private grounds you will also see robots. This is basically what we see as a marketplace. Different solution for different problems," he predicts.