Today, multinational retail chain Walmart and autonomous vehicle-making company Nuro announced that both companies will initiate pilot drives for autonomous grocery deliveries in partnership. The self-driving test drives are scheduled to take place in Houston, Texas.
Tom Ward, senior vice president of digital operations for the American grocery chain, commented that Walmart has been trialling several different options for the self-driving delivery system. He said:
"We"ve been test-driving a number of different options for getting groceries from our stores to our customers’ front doors through self-driving technology. We believe this technology is a natural extension of our Grocery Pickup and Delivery service and our goal of making every day a little easier for customers."
Nuro and Walmart will join forces - and resources - to test out this new autonomous grocery delivery service to customers located in Houston in the days to come. Do note that the self-driving deliveries will only be available to a select group of people who have signed up for the pilot deliveries.
Unfortunately, neither Walmart nor Nuro were able to shed some light on exact trial dates and schedules. All we know for now is that the Houston-based pilot will initiate in the weeks to come and that the service won"t be fully available until 2020, as suggested by the title of Nuro"s press release.