Shell Lubricants is planning to hold two separate cross-country trips to showcase fuel-efficient truck technologies, the company announced May 10.

It looks like a mini-Mars rover and, someday soon, it could be rolling down the sidewalk next to you as you walk to lunch or take your nightly jog.

Henry Harris-Burland, marketing and communications manager at Starship Technologies, gave a presentation to Sunnyvale, California, City Council members, asking them to consider allowing the company to run a test pilot program in the city using autonomous delivery robots that would deliver parcels, groceries and food.

Making shooing gestures with his hands, Ahti Heinla, an engineer who helped start Skype, stood on Balboa Street in San Francisco. “Can you come out of the way for the robots?” he said to an assembled scrum of journalists. “They’re programmed to not crash into people.”