Walmart and Nuro kick off self-driving tech pilot

Walmart has announced a new Houston-based pilot with autonomous vehicle company Nuro. 

The latter, which was founded by two ex-Google engineers, has been making grocery deliveries in Houston with its fleet of autonomous Toyota Prius vehicles since March. It now plans to add its custom-built R2 prototype vehicle into the mix.

“Walmart is committed to delivering groceries – with a side of time-saving convenience – through our ever-expanding Grocery Pickup and Delivery service. As we near the end of 2019, we’ve grown our online grocery footprint to nearly 3,100 pickup locations with deliveries coming from more than 1,600 stores – powered by Walmart’s team of over 50,000 personal shoppers,” says Tom Ward, SVP, Digital Operations for Walmart US.

“Our unparalleled size and scale have allowed us to steer grocery delivery to the front doors of millions of families – and design a roadmap for the future of the industry. 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. 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.”

Domino’s Pizza

Earlier this year, Nuro announced it was working with Domino’s Pizza on an autonomous pizza delivery initiative in Houston. Further details here.

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