Walmart to test self-driving cars in multiple cities with Ford, Argo AI

Author | Lu Jieping

Walmart is expanding its partnerships with autonomous vehicle companies to now include Ford Motor and Argo AI, a self-driving car startup backed by the automaker.

The partnership will use Ford Escape Hybrids with Argo AI technology to deliver to Walmart locations in Miami, the District of Columbia and Austin, Texas, the companies said Wednesday.

The program will allow Walmart customers to order groceries and other items online for automatic delivery to their homes.

“We’re excited to be working with Argo and Ford to expand our autonomous delivery efforts in three new markets,” Tom Ward, senior vice president of last mile delivery at Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “This collaboration will further help us get products to customers’ homes faster and more conveniently, and will continue to pave the way for unmanned delivery.”

Ford and Walmart conducted a self-driving car pilot program in 2018. The retail giant is also currently working with Gatik and GM-backed Cruise on a self-driving delivery pilot program. In addition to the partnership, Walmart also acquired a stake in Cruise earlier this year.

Online grocery orders are a core part of Walmart's membership program, which it launched a year ago to compete with Amazon's Prime service. One of the benefits of the subscription service is free, unlimited delivery of orders to members' homes.

Walmart has seen a sharp increase in online sales during the pandemic as more consumers stayed home and restocked their refrigerators from their couches. Walmart's U.S. e-commerce sales grew 79% year-over-year in the year ended Jan. 31 of its last fiscal year. However, Walmart's e-commerce business has not yet turned a profit, which has put pressure on the company to reduce costs - Walmart needs to find efficient ways to deliver boxes and piles of goods to customers' doorsteps.

The partnership is Walmart’s first multi-city self-driving service. Argo AI founder and CEO Bryan Salesky said the focus on three cities will demonstrate its “potential for delivering self-driving services at scale.”

Initially, the companies will deploy a small fleet in each of the three cities where Ford and Volkswagen AG are partnering to test self-driving cars, and the fleets will expand over time, according to a spokesperson for Argo AI, which is testing self-driving cars in the three cities and other cities.

The commercialization of self-driving cars has proven more challenging than many predicted a few years ago. After years of optimism that touted the technology as the next trillion-dollar market for transportation companies, the industry is going through a period of consolidation.

Some companies, like Uber Technologies, have given up on developing systems in-house, while others, like Zoox, have sold to Amazon. Waymo remains the most high-profile frontrunner, operating a public fleet of self-driving cars in Arizona.

This article is compiled from:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/walmart-to-test-self-driving-cars-in-multiple-cities-with-ford-argo.html