If you live in Canada, this year’s set of snow tires might be installed by a robot.

San Francisco startup PitPro Automation said Wednesday that it has installed its first automatic tire-changing system at a tire shop in Calgary, Alberta. The startup says its robotic system, first revealed last year, can swap a full set of four tires in under 15 minutes. The first deployment is at a Kal Tire location — one of Canada’s largest independent tire service chains.

PitPro is one of myriad startups trying to disrupt different parts of the car ownership experience. While founder and CEO Jeremy Conrad told TechCrunch he ultimately wants to move into other kinds of automated maintenance, he thinks there’s big opportunity to build a business around tires in the near term.

Changing tires is “backbreaking” work, and tire shops are facing a major labor shortage, he said in an interview. Even when shops can find people for the job, he said, those workers often leave within a few months to a year.

“One shop manager was telling me they had to get special permission to pay more because a Panda Express opened across the street and it took about half their employees,” he said.

PitPro’s system is designed to slide right into existing maintenance bays. It features two boxy robots, each roughly the size of an oven, that use a mix of sensors and a robotic arm to locate and loosen the lug nuts. The robots store the lug nuts, pull off each wheel, and replace it with a new or rotated tire.

Source link