An autonomous food delivery robot burst into flames on a Berkeley, California walkway on Friday, as first reported by The Daily Californian. Kiwi, the startup that makes and manages the one hundred-strong fleet of robots, issued a statement to say that the fire was quickly extinguished by a passerby before the city’s fire department arrived and doused the machine in foam. No one was harmed as a result of the incident.
Kiwi suspended its service until it was able to complete its investigation. It said that it believed the fire was caused by human error, when a faulty battery was manually inserted into the robot, eventually causing thermal runaway — the same issue that resulted in the recall of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones. Kiwi says...
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