Magna International Inc. is building a fleet of cooler-size robots for Cartken, an autonomous delivery technology startup.
Although Cartken announced the contract Wednesday, Magna started building the robots last month.
It made an initial order of 50 Cartken Model C robots at its plant in suburban Detroit and is increasing capacity, Matteo Del Sorbo, executive vice president at Magna, told Automotive News.
The agreement calls for Magna to build thousands of the six-wheel robots, but the companies did not provide an exact number or a dollar value for the contract.
Cartken sees a market for robots for autonomous deliveries at hotels, universities, warehouses and other locations. The Oakland, Calif., company is the developer and won't be providing the service.
Other companies will use the robots to do the actual deliveries. It is a business model similar to self-driving car companies such as Argo and Motional.
"This partnership is a sig…