Walmart To Test Self-Driving Cars For Grocery Pickup Service
The future is here and soon it will be toting grocery shoppers around Phoenix. Walmart and Waymo — formerly Google's self-driving car project — announced on Wednesday the launch of a pilot program that will allow consumers to make their grocery pickups with the help of an autonomous vehicle.
The plan is simple. Participants in Waymo's "early riders" program will be able to take a driverless shuttle service to and from Walmart whenever they purchase groceries from Walmart.com using the retailer's online grocery pickup service.
Current "early riders" will receive incentives to participate in the pilot and the rides will be provided with no additional cost, Molly Blakeman, a Walmart spokesperson, said in an email to NPR. "Since the pilot is part of our Grocery Pickup program, personal shoppers pick customers' orders and bring them right out to the car ... in this case a Waymo self-driving car," she said.
Related: Google/Waymo Announces Testing of Self-Driving Trucks in Atlanta, Georgia
Related Stories
Waymo officially expands self-driving effort into trucks
Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving company born out of Google X, is seen by many as the leader in the field of self-driving.
After focusing on autonomous passenger cars to soon launch a self-driving ride-hailing service, the company is now expanding the effort to trucks. The company has been known to have been working on a truck program since last summer, but they confirmed it today in a blog post.
[...] Now the program is expanding to Atlanta, Georgia, which they will make the home of Google's logistical operations. From there, Waymo will ship cargo to Google's data centers. They say that you will be able to see Waymo's blue trucks on the road as soon as next week as part of the pilot program
Also at TechCrunch, Ars Technica, and Reuters.
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
Waymo to Start First Driverless Car Service Next Month
In just a few weeks, humanity may take its first paid ride into the age of driverless cars. Waymo, the secretive subsidiary of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is planning to launch the world's first commercial driverless car service in early December, according to a person familiar with the plans. It will operate under a new brand and compete directly with Uber and Lyft.
Waymo is keeping the new name a closely guarded secret until the formal announcement, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven't been made public.
"Waymo has been working on self-driving technology for nearly a decade, with safety at the core of everything we do," the company said in an emailed statement. A Waymo spokesperson declined to comment on the name of the new service or timing of the launch.
It's a big milestone for self-driving cars, but it won't exactly be a "flip-the-switch" moment. Waymo isn't planning a splashy media event, and the service won't be appearing in an app store anytime soon, according to the person familiar with the program. Instead, things will start small—perhaps dozens or hundreds of authorized riders in the suburbs around Phoenix, covering about 100 square miles.
The first wave of customers will likely draw from Waymo's Early Rider Program—a test group of 400 volunteer families who have been riding Waymos for more than a year. The customers who move to the new service will be released from their non-disclosure agreements, which means they'll be free to talk about it, snap selfies, and take friends or even members of the media along for rides. New customers in the Phoenix area will be gradually phased in as Waymo adds more vehicles to its fleet to ensure a balance of supply and demand.
Related: Google Waymo Vehicles to Hit the Road This Month
Waymo Orders Thousands More Chrysler Pacifica Minivans for Driverless Fleet
Walmart and Waymo to Trial Driverless Shuttle Service in Phoenix for Grocery Pickups
Waymo has announced a driverless taxi service called Waymo One, but it will only be usable for around 400 preapproved "early riders" in the Phoenix metro area, rather than the general public. While self-driving Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans will be used, they will continue to retain a safety driver behind the wheel.
Waymo's "new" service could be described as a launch in name only:
The banner Waymo is unfurling, though, is tattered by caveats. Waymo One will only be available to the 400 or so people already enrolled in Waymo's early rider program, which has been running in the calm, sunny Phoenix suburb of Chandler for about 18 months. (They can bring guests with them and have been freed from non-disclosure agreements that kept them from publicly discussing their experiences.) More glaringly, the cars will have a human behind the wheel, there to take control in case the car does something it shouldn't.
So no, this is not the anyone-can-ride, let-the-robot-drive experience Waymo and its competitors have been promising for years. Building a reliably safe system has proven far harder than just about everyone anticipated and its cars aren't ready to drive without human oversight. But Waymo promised to launch a commercial service sometime in 2018, it didn't want to miss its deadline and risk its reputation as the leader of the industry it essentially created, and not even the might of Waymo parent company Alphabet can delay the end of the calendar year.
So Waymo is pushing out a software update, tweaking its branding, and calling it a launch.
Also at Reuters, Gizmodo, The Atlantic, and Ars Technica.
See also: Waymo's driverless cars on the road: Cautious, clunky, impressive
Previously: Google/Waymo Self-Driving Minivan Tested with the Public in Phoenix AZ
Waymo Orders Thousands More Chrysler Pacifica Minivans for Driverless Fleet
Walmart and Waymo to Trial Driverless Shuttle Service in Phoenix for Grocery Pickups
Google's Waymo Plans to Launch a Self-Driving Car Service in December (the service falls short of what is described in this November article)
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday July 28 2018, @06:02AM (2 children)
"Your grocery delivery van injured or killed ___ pedestrians, cyclists, other on this delivery. Please report blood or body parts found in your delivery"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @06:18AM
Sound strategy. Pretty soon everyone will be using a driverless car or dead.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:46AM
Vomit fraud 2.0. I like it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @06:35AM
chromas binged on videos of pickup artists working their magic in grocery store parking lots, then posted this story.
#BDE
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @08:11AM (2 children)
Wal Mart is where lowlife scum shop.
It's depressing to even be near the place.
I don't give a fuck if Charlize Theron shows up in a Singer 911 to give me a ride to Wal Mart, I'm not going.
However, with Charlize I would go anywhere else :-)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @08:26AM
Would you let her take you to Save-a-Lot?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @02:09PM
incel spotted
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday July 28 2018, @04:22PM (2 children)
I really don't want anyone else picking out my produce and meat for me. I know, I know...if I go to a restaurant someone has done just that. However I seldom eat out. I can cook better meals at home than most restaurants provide.
Now if they would drop me off at a Walmart and then pick me up after I had shopped there and any where else in the shopping center, then maybe I'd buy some stuff at Walmart for the ride.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @05:16PM (1 child)
Kroger already has a service called ClickList where they do the same thing, so I'm sure the concept has been reviewed by now. Incidentally, they are also testing driverless grocery delivery [cnbc.com], except they'll bring it to your door.
That's what I thought this was going to be about when I first spotted it. Walmart already does delivery to the home ("in some markets" [walmart.com]), so I wonder why they want to pick people up, bring them to the store, and then immediately send them back. Get them into the physical store and you can entice them to buy junk with all of the psychological tricks that have been used by retailers for decades.
What is the point of adding the online shopper to this driverless pickup process? "Personal shoppers pick customers' orders and bring them right out to the car". Presumably they can load those orders into the trunk, and then send the car on its merry way with no passengers in it. You could design the car to be "100% trunk space" if it is not meant to have passengers, and Walmart doesn't face any liability from passengers getting hurt if there are no passengers (we'll ignore the pedestrians and other vehicles for now, since they can be affected whether or not there are passengers inside the delivery vehicle). The only thing I can think of is that having a human inside becomes a theft deterrent. But another solution to that problem would be to deploy the service only "in some markets" yet again.
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(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:20AM
Oh the concept has been reviewed, and ~85% of consumers said they won't buy groceries online because they want to pick out items in-person [qz.com].
It's the biggest thing that makes perishable grocery stores different from just about every other trend in retail moving online.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)
A few weeks ago I saw this press release, Waymo purchased 62,000 Pacifica hybrid minivans from Fiat Chrysler and I was wondering where they are all going --
http://www.autonews.com/article/20180531/RETAIL01/180539962/fca-waymo-chrysler-pacifica-hybrid-fleet [autonews.com]
This article even mentions a ride service in Phoenix, so they must have been talking to Walmart for awhile.
These are hybrids which mean they already have a heavy duty electrical system that can be expanded to run the computers and sensors. I'll speculate that FCA and Waymo already worked out a special wiring harness so that the cars are plug-ready for the additional electronics.
Big deal for FCA, this might be about a half-year production of Pacifica at current sales rate, so it's a large order.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @08:11PM
Waymo Orders Thousands More Chrysler Pacifica Minivans for Driverless Fleet [soylentnews.org]
Waymo Partners With Jaguar for 20,000 Self-Driving Electric SUVs [soylentnews.org]
I don't think I ever saw the 62k story. If news items like that are becoming routine, they may be getting serious.
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