FORD WILL BE ABLE TO BEAT THE QUEUES AND DROP YOUR ORDERS ON YOUR DOORSTEP

simple, it seems; trudging it up the garden path, or getting access to flats? Not so easy for a robot.

That’s why it has also crafted a clutch of concepts to solve the urban mobility problem. Carr-e, for example, is a little round ’bot the size of a spare wheel that will happily carry boxes around your neighbourhood’s roads and paths.

Ford’s reasoning for all this hard graft is to reduce congestion and pollution. It’s pledged to have autonomous commercial vehicles in circulation by 2021; and given its work with self-driving cars and ride-sharing schemes, we’re inclined to believe it.