There’s always a chance some of those thousands of vans delivering packages for Amazon will break down or suffer some other malfunction that will keep them from making their rounds. But the e-commerce giant is going all-in with Israeli tech company UVeye to catch any mechanical or physical issues before the vans hit the road.
UVeye’s AI-powered automated vehicle drive-through vehicle inspection systems, or AVI, will be installed at Amazon delivery stations in the U.S., Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, the companies announced Wednesday.
“We’re able to find very small issues on the tires, the undercarriage, the the exterior, and it helps them make sure their vehicles are safe for their drivers but also help to be more efficient and make sure they deliver all the packages,” said UVeye co-founder and CEO Amir Hever in an interview. “We’re talking about hundreds of units in the next few years.”
The deal comes as a result of a more than two-year pilot program where UVeye inspection stations were installed at selected Amazon locations in the U.S. The companies said an unspecified number of vehicle “groundings” were reduced within weeks as a result of the inspections.
“After a successful pilot program, we’re looking forward to the deployment of AVI,” said Tom Chempananical, global fleet director of Amazon Logistics in a statement. “There are over 100,000 Amazon-branded delivery vehicles on the road, bringing 20 million packages to our customers every day. With AVI, we can automate most of the inspection process at scale, to help reduce time spent on this task by DSPs and Delivery Associates, get packages to customers faster, while improving safety on the road.”
UVeye’s AVI actually consists of three separate inspection systems designed to detect different types of issues:
- Helios-An underbody scanner that detects a wide variety of problems including frame damage, missing parts and fluid leaks, as well as brake- and exhaust-system issues.
- Artemis-A system that checks tire quality. Within seconds it identifies tire brand, technical specifications, air pressure, tread depth, sidewall damage, whether or not a vehicle’s tires are mismatched and alignment issues.
- Atlas-A 360-degree vehicle-exterior detection system that checks sheet metal and other external body components such as bumpers, door locks, grilles and windows.
All three systems will be installed at Amazon locations, Hever said.
UVeye’s drive-through inspection technology originated as a means of screening vehicles for contraband at border crossings but the company quickly expanded its use for instant quality control inspections at auto assembly plants.
The company has since opened a North American headquarters in Teaneck, N.J. and rapidly expanded availability of its drive-through inspection stations at dealerships and fleets. It also has facilities in Japan and Germany.
During 2022 and early 2023 UVeye announced major programs in the United States involving more than 5,000 dealerships, used-car auctions and fleets that includes commercial agreements with General Motors Co., Volvo Cars USA and used car chain CarMax to introduce UVeye technology to their wholesale networks.
UVeye’s U.S. workforce has tripled to “almost 100” while it employs 140 in Tel Aviv, Israel, according to Hever.
This new deal with Amazon represents a major move in UVeye’s commercial fleet business which Hever said he’d like to grow even further.
Indeed, as it lands new partners word is getting around about UVeye’s drive-through inspection technology and, Hever says, that means what was once a slim start-up is enjoying major growth that’s more than a spurt.
“We are seeing more and more partners more and more customers that will like to have the same user experience the same accuracy of inspecting cars,” said Hever. “So definitely we’re going to sign in the very near future with additional big players and that will require us to bring more funding to be able to support them as well.”
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