Vespa Just Unveiled a Robot That’ll Carry Stuff for You

Who needs arms when you've got a droid?

January 31, 2017 9:00 am

After cornering the the scooter market with the Vespa, the Piaggio Group has set its sights on dominating the marketplace for two-wheelers of a vastly different variety: robots.

The first — which is being rolled out by the company’s new Boston-based Piaggio Fast Forward branch — is a 26-inch tall cargo-carrying bot named Gita (Italian for “short trip”).

Capable of following a human or operating autonomously using pre-programmed maps, Gita is an indoor/outdoor smart bot that can carry up to 40 pounds and hit a max speed of 22 MPH. Thanks to a zero turning radius, Gita has superior agility and can accompany owners as they ”walk, run, pedal and skate through life” or run autonomous solo missions.

Vespa Cargo Bot (6 images)

“The transportation and robotics industries tend to focus on optimizing tasks and displacing labor,” according to PFF CEO Jeffrey Schnapp. “We are developing products that augment and extend human capabilities, instead of simply seeking to replace them.”

Besides carting your stuff around, PFF also thinks Gita can help you, and Spike, in other ways:

We’ll find out more when Gita makes her official debut in Cambridge later this week. Salute.

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