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Kroger launches autonomous grocery delivery service in Arizona
Starting today, residents of Scottsdale, Arizona have the opportunity to receive autonomous grocery deliveries from Fry's Food Stores—a brand owned by grocery giant Kroger. The technology is supplied by Nuro, a self-driving vehicle startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving car project. We profiled the company in May.
Kroger says that deliveries will have a flat $5.95 delivery fee, and customers can schedule same-day or next-day deliveries. Initially, the deliveries will be made by Nuro's fleet of modified Toyota Priuses with a safety driver behind the wheel. But Kroger expects to start using Nuro's production model—which doesn't even have space for a driver—this fall.
Kroger is the United States's largest supermarket chain by revenue, the second-largest general retailer (behind Walmart), and the eighteenth largest company in the United States.
Previously: An Unmanned Car May Soon Deliver Your Kroger Groceries
Related: Walmart and Waymo to Trial Driverless Shuttle Service in Phoenix for Grocery Pickups
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday August 20 2018, @03:33PM (1 child)
Cost of labor. This type of service exists overseas (I've seen it in China specifically); there are companies which will purchase and hand deliver something for you via motorcycle courier.
Now, to replace with robots is a completely different story. Robots are good at repeatable standardized actions. Product selection, purchase, and delivery is probably some of the most difficult tasks to automate.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 20 2018, @06:36PM
Kroger already has ClickList employees, who receive your online order, shop for you, and carry the groceries to your car when you arrive. Presumably they will be involved with this scheme, and even utilized to a greater extent if more people do online orders with this new option.
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