- Walmart is now testing driverless vehicles for delivering groceries to the homes of its customers in partnership with Nuro
Walmart is now testing driverless vehicles for delivering groceries to the homes of its customers. The vehicles are called R2 and it is custom-built without seating for drivers of passengers.
The R2 vehicles are being built by the robotics company Nuro. Next year, Walmart is going to pilot the R2 vehicles along with Toyota Prius vehicles in the Houston area.
Earlier this year, Nuro had raised $940 million in funding from SoftBank’s Vision Fund. And around this time last year, Kroger and Nuro revealed they were testing unmanned grocery delivery services.
“Our unparalleled size and scale has allowed us to steer grocery delivery to the front doors of millions of families — and design a roadmap for the future of the industry,” said Walmart U.S. SVP of Digital Operations Tom Ward in a statement. “Along the way, 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.”
The driverless delivery vehicles are going to be available to Walmart customers who opt-in. Walmart is also planning driverless delivery tests with Ford in Miami and Waymo in Arizona.
