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Uber Technologies announced on Monday that it had begun testing autonomous food delivery services in two California locations and that it was adding electric vehicle charging stations to its worldwide driver app.

The announcements are part of Uber's annual product event, where the ride-hailing and food-delivery service shows off the most recent software improvements.

Uber unveiled a meal delivery service that uses self-driving cars, as well as a separate test that uses sidewalk robots. Both services are offered to Uber Eats users in the California cities of Santa Monica and West Hollywood, and customers can opt out of the programme.

The self-driving car pilot was first unveiled in December in partnership with Motional, a self-driving joint venture between Hyundai Motor and Aptiv PLC. Uber and Motional announced the launch on Monday.

Serve Robotics, a spin-off of delivery business Postmates, which Uber purchased in 2020, is providing the sidewalk robots, according to Uber.

Human operators actively supervise the vehicles in both services, Uber said, adding that "it will be some time before this technology is operating at scale."

With only a handful limited completely autonomous programmes available across the US, self-driving startups have continually pushed back timeframes to provide truly driverless rides at scale.