Four Million Couriers Await a "Nirvana": The Last Mile and the Last 100 Meters of Unmanned Delivery

The wave of unmanned delivery is sweeping across the logistics industry at a speed far exceeding expectations.

By the end of the first quarter of 2026, the number of unmanned delivery vehicles in China had reached 47,000, nearly quadrupling from over 10,000 in 2024. According to a report by iResearch, in 2025, the sales volume of unmanned urban distribution vehicles in China reached about 22,000, marking the beginning of the industry's large - scale development. The white paper predicts that this number will reach 89,000 in 2026 and is expected to approach 1.5 million by 2030, with the total number of vehicles in use exceeding 3.5 million.

The industry is experiencing a three - fold increase in one year and aiming for one million in five years. This industrial restructuring is not just brewing in the laboratory but is quietly taking place on the roads, at the entrances of residential communities, and in every daily moment when users wait for takeaways and express deliveries. When unmanned delivery is no longer a "future - tense" concept, the sharpest contradiction in this industrial transformation is starting to surface.

At the APEC CEO China Forum on June 21st, Liu Qiangdong, the founder of JD Group, pointed out bluntly: "In the future, robots will do all the deliveries. There won't be a need for couriers at all. It will definitely be robots delivering." He then added: "But I don't want our 700,000 brothers to be out of work and have nothing to eat."

The connection between these two statements precisely represents the most significant proposition in the unmanned delivery industry - the game between technological progress and social costs. As technology marches forward, where will those who once supported the operation of this industry be placed? This may not only concern the strategic adjustment of a single company but also the puzzle that the entire industry needs to solve in this industrial transformation.

4 Million Couriers Await "Nirvana"

JD has taken the lead in leaving a "way out" for its employees. According to Liu Qiangdong's disclosure at the forum, JD has recently proposed a labor transformation plan called the "Nirvana Plan" within the company. Currently, it has signed agreements with over 120 schools across the country and plans to send 700,000 front - line blue - collar workers, including couriers and warehouse operators, in batches for technical training in robot maintenance and repair.

The goal of this plan is to "transform blue - collar workers into white - collar workers," so that "they can sit in the office instead of braving the elements and working so hard." At the same time, Liu Qiangdong emphasized that JD will not lay off any front - line employees who are replaced by machines and will minimize the impact of new technologies on blue - collar workers and their families.

This statement forms a sharp contrast with JD's unmanned layout in the past year.

In October 2025, JD Logistics announced an ambitious procurement "blueprint" for the next five years: 3 million robots for sorting and handling within warehouses; 1 million unmanned delivery vehicles to cover the entire ground transportation link from trunk lines to last - mile connections; and 100,000 drones for delivery scenarios in remote areas and urban air corridors.

In November of the same year, during a speech at the Wuzhen Summit, Liu Qiangdong revealed that the sorting center built by JD in Beijing had basically replaced 90% of the previous manual labor with robots and would complete the world's first unmanned delivery station in April 2026. It is understood that this station adopts a "air + ground" three - dimensional collaborative operation mode, with drones taking off and landing above and unmanned delivery vehicles loading below. All operations inside the station are completed by robotic arms, and human figures may completely disappear from this building.

From an enterprise perspective, the wave of unmanned technology is an irresistible trend, and this logic becomes even more self - consistent after the revolutionary explosion of AI technology: machines are cheaper, more stable, and more efficient than humans. However, from the perspective of 700,000 couriers, this is a broader social issue: in the face of the impact of AI and automation on traditional jobs, how should enterprises bear the "cost of people"?

As a logistics giant, JD's statement reflects its due social responsibility and provides a good reference direction. However, although the direction of the "Nirvana Plan" is worthy of recognition, its actual implementation still faces numerous challenges.

First, there is the issue of matching the scale of couriers with the capacity of maintenance worker positions. Simply put, a courier station with a daily package volume of over 1,000 pieces requires 3 - 5 people for clear division of labor. But if it is replaced by robot delivery, 1 - 2 robot maintenance personnel may be responsible for equipment maintenance in an area, and the capacity of these positions needs to be further investigated.

Second, there is a gap in technical learning ability affected by age and educational level. The core skills of couriers are "physical strength + familiarity with routes + basic communication," while robot maintenance requires knowledge of circuits, mechanical principles, and programming logic. The gap between these two skill systems is no less than asking a marathon runner to repair the timer on the track.

History shows that the groups replaced by new technologies in each industrial upgrade often find it difficult to directly transform into high - level technical workers in the new technology ecosystem. Short - term training may select a small number of employees with learning ability to enter technical positions, but it is difficult to be a general solution for the majority of the group.

Moreover, the number 700,000 is just a part of the national army of couriers.

The latest data shows that in 2026, the number of couriers in China was about 3.2 million. If we include general employees such as management, support, and flexible workers, the number exceeds 4 million. In the torrent triggered by unmanned technology, 4 million express delivery employees are waiting for "nirvana."

The "Multi - Party Battle" in Unmanned Delivery

Of course, "not needing couriers" and "all couriers disappearing" are two different things. Unmanned delivery will not eliminate the courier profession overnight, but it will redefine it. And the promoters of this wave are far from just JD. Although the paths of various giants are different, they all point to the same direction: replacing humans with machines and transforming the delivery industry from a labor - intensive industry to a technology - intensive one.

The "2025 China Unmanned Urban Distribution Vehicle Industry White Paper" shows that the Chinese unmanned urban distribution vehicle industry achieved a key breakthrough in 2025 and entered a new stage of large - scale commercial operation. It is predicted that the annual sales volume of unmanned urban distribution vehicles in China will reach 89,000 in 2026. As one of the carriers of the technological reshaping of the logistics industry, unmanned delivery vehicles have frequently appeared in the public eye in the past two years.

Since last year, Cainiao, which has been deploying in the unmanned vehicle field for 10 years, has been very active. First, it launched the GT - Lite model, a short - distance transportation vehicle with lower costs, and started mass delivery. Then it won Shentong as a major customer and put 2,000 unmanned vehicles into operation within the year. In January this year, it invested in Jiushi Intelligence, a rising star in the unmanned delivery track, through a combination of asset injection and cash investment, and started dual - brand operation.

This strong alliance not only gave birth to the world's largest RoboVan fleet but also stirred up the unmanned delivery vehicle market to form a duopoly: Jiushi Intelligence (including Cainiao) accounts for 53.2% with 25,000 vehicles, and Neolix accounts for 36.2% with 17,000 vehicles. The two together account for nearly 90% of the market share.

Neolix is another dark - horse supplier that has emerged in the unmanned vehicle track in recent years. Major domestic express and logistics companies such as China Post, "STO, YTO, ZTO, and BEST," SF Express, J&T Express, and JD Logistics are all its main customers for large - scale delivery. During the 618 promotion this year, the number of Neolix unmanned vehicles used in the express and logistics industry increased by 266% compared with the same period last year, and they entered nearly 6,000 villages across the country.

Since this year, driven by factors such as rising labor costs and bottlenecks in fulfillment efficiency, large enterprises have significantly accelerated the shift of unmanned delivery from technical verification to large - scale commercial operation. The focus of competition is concentrated on three major scenarios: express logistics, urban pharmaceutical distribution, and low - altitude delivery.

Meituan is one of the bettors on the low - altitude delivery route. On May 21st, Meituan announced that its "low - altitude air network" of drones, which had been in trial operation for many years, was officially put into regular operation. This marks that after 9 years of exploration, Meituan's drones have completed the transformation from "single - point testing" to "networking." By the end of 2025, Meituan's drones had opened 70 routes in cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Guangzhou, with a cumulative number of orders exceeding 780,000. By May 2026, this number had exceeded 900,000.

If Liu Qiangdong's speech is a clarion call, then the current situation of the Chinese unmanned delivery industry is a situation where multiple forces are advancing side by side.

The Last Mile and the Last Hundred Meters

In the next five years, the total number of unmanned urban distribution vehicles in China is expected to exceed 3.5 million. However, in the logistics industry, even if technology, scenarios, and costs are all sorted out, it is just getting the entry ticket. What really determines the outcome is not who can own more vehicles but who can establish a scalable and sustainable urban logistics network.

The biggest challenge in the "last mile" of the large - scale implementation of unmanned delivery vehicles currently does not lie in algorithms and hardware but in a series of institutional issues such as vague identity definition, unclear right - of - way, difficult liability determination, lack of safety supervision, and imperfect standard systems.

First of all, there is the most embarrassing identity problem. Is the unmanned delivery vehicle running on the road every day a motor vehicle or a non - motor vehicle? There has never been a legal "status." Yin Xunguo, the vice - president of Neolix Technology Co., Ltd., pointed out in an interview with China Transport News: "The identity dilemma can be said to be the root of all problems."

This statement is not an exaggeration. Due to the identity vacuum, there is no unified national standard and process for right - of - way application. Automobile companies need to prepare different materials for different cities, which consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. And cross - regional operation has to face one set of local rules after another. The current situation of "one policy for each place" in right - of - way application is becoming the most realistic resistance to large - scale deployment.

Currently, more than 100 cities across the country have opened the right - of - way for unmanned delivery vehicles. However, for these 100 "openings," some mean the vehicles can run throughout the city, while some only allow them to move slowly on a few designated pilot routes. The six words "can run on the pilot routes, difficult to run across the whole area" summarize the current reality that unmanned delivery has the right - of - way but no road network.

At the same time, because of the vague identity definition, the division of accident liability lacks a legal basis from the beginning. The issue of the attribution of safety responsibility is changing from theoretical deduction to a real - world question. When the number of unmanned vehicles on the road increases from dozens to thousands and the delivery scenarios expand from closed parks to open streets, the probability of accidents will not always be zero. Once an accident occurs, determining who is responsible, how to set the compensation, and how the insurance should pay are still difficult problems to solve.

However, the bottleneck in the "last mile" is also turning around. On July 1st, GA/T 2388 - 2026 "Safety Traffic Specifications for Road Testing and Demonstration Applications of Intelligent Connected Vehicles" was officially implemented. This is the first national "traffic regulation" covering all categories of unmanned delivery vehicles in China, which for the first time provides a unified standard from right - of - way allocation to accident liability determination. It is generally considered by the industry to be the watershed for unmanned delivery vehicles to move from scattered deployment to national large - scale operation.

For players like Meituan in the drone delivery field, the right - of - way problem on the ground is only half of the challenge. The airspace management of low - altitude delivery is also in a transition period of poor departmental coordination and fragmented regional standards. Airspace approval remains the biggest variable in large - scale expansion. The newly revised Civil Aviation Law will also come into effect on July 1st, providing regulatory guidance for the low - altitude economy at the national level. However, in terms of the regular operation of urban low - altitude logistics, the allocation mechanism of airspace use rights, the responsibility boundary of flight safety, and the dispatching rules of air traffic are still being explored.

The speed of institutional improvement is becoming the "last hundred meters" that determines the industrialization process of unmanned delivery. It may take a long time to complete this last hundred meters. For those in the wave of unmanned technology, the real challenge is not "will robots take my job" but "can I hold on to my job when it changes?"

This article is from the WeChat official account "Digital Science Society" (ID: sktxs0), written by Beiye, and published by 36Kr with authorization.