Walmart has started using fully driverless trucks in its online grocery shopping business.
Walmart and Gatik, a startup company in Silicon Valley, announced on Monday that they’ve been operating two autonomous box trucks on a 7-mile loop for 12 hours daily since August, CNBC reported.
It said the trucks were filled with online grocery orders which were then taken to a Walmart neighborhood store near its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.
The effort began in December 2020 after the companies won approval from the Arkansas State Highway Commission, according to CNBC.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Gatik to achieve this industry-first, driverless milestone,” Walmart senior vice president Tom Ward said in a statement.
CNBC noted that Walmart is far from the only store experimenting with the shipment of groceries with autonomous vehicles. It noted that the supermarket chain Kroger also has tested autonomous delivery with the start-up Nuro since 2018, while Albertsons, which operates supermarkets including Safeway and Kings, partnered with start-up Tortoise.