FedEx is expanding its robotics testing to include one of the bigger names in autonomous delivery. The company has struck a multi-year deal with Nuro to test its self-driving delivery vehicles, including for "last-mile" deliveries. The team-up started this April with a Houston-area pilot, but that's likely to expand when Nuro characterized this as a pledge to use driverless vehicles on a "large-scale." This is a big move for Nuro. For FedEx, this could help it manage capacity, tackle less-than-ideal routes and cut costs (which, let's be honest, could involve job cuts). It's also a competitive play -- rivals like UPS are already testing self-driving trucks, and this could help it keep up as the courier business becomes increasingly automated.

It's found just the right place in Arizona, which has continued its lax regulatory policy for autonomous vehicles after an Uber self-driving Volvo killed a pedestrian on March 18 in Tempe. Nuro's co-founder and president, David Ferguson, signed a registration letter to the state Department of Transportation for the company on April 17, confirming that it planned to start testing fully autonomous vehicles on Arizona roads. On March 1, Governor Doug Ducey published an executive order to address fully autonomous vehicles, adding a modicum of oversight to his pro-business policy. All companies that intend to put fully driverless vehicles on Arizona roads in the near future, or are already testing them on roads, were ordered to register with the state within 60 days. As of May 2, Nuro was one of only two companies that had filed the required statement.