Walmart and Ford agree autonomous vehicles have an important role to play in the future of delivery.
Walmart and Ford recently started a pilot program that will explore grocery delivery using autonomous vehicle technology.
The pilot program will be conducted in Miami-Dade County, according to a Walmart news release.
Through the program, the companies intend to learn more about how to take advantage of self-driving vehicles to deliver groceries. Postmates, which is already connected to Ford’s digital platform, will serve as the delivery partner.
“Through this collaboration, we are exploring how self-driving vehicles can deliver many everyday goods such as groceries, diapers, pet food and personal care items,” according to a Ford blog post. “Enabled by Postmates delivery as a service, we were able to quickly set up a pilot program that explores how our self-driving vehicles can complement Walmart’s existing delivery offerings. Since Postmates is already a partner of both Ford and Walmart, the companies are able to utilize Postmates’ infrastructure to get this offering up and running quickly.”
Walmart plans to stay on the leading edge of grocery delivery, according to the release, and delivery via autonomous vehicles is another way to make getting groceries quick and easy for customers. Before announcing this partnership, Walmart also worked with Waymo in an effort to learn how customers want to use self-driving cars for grocery shopping.
According to the Walmart release, “Walmart and Ford agree autonomous vehicles have an important role to play as we consider the future of delivery. Before self-driving cars can go mainstream, we must get a better sense of how people want to interact with them. Together, we will gather crucial data to learn the best way to bring items to customers.”
