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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

middle-mile

Gatik Partners with Isuzu North America to Develop Autonomous Medium Duty Trucks

Gatik, which makes self-driving delivery vehicles for the middle-mile, announced today that it is collaborating with Isuzu North America on a project to develop and evaluate fully autonomous medium-duty trucks.

The first vehicles the two companies will work on will integrate Gatik’s autonomous driving technology into a number of Isuzu’s N-Series trucks. Together the two companies will produce SAE Level 4 delivery vehicles with redundant systems.

Gatik has had a busy 2021 so far. In February, the company announced its electrification plans and debuted its first Electric Autonomous Box Truck built on Ford Transit 350 HDs. Earlier this month, Gatik announced that it received funding from Ontario’s (Canada) Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network to help winterize its self-driving technology. (Driving in inclement weather requires a more sophisticated approach than driving in bright, sunny weather because of poor visibility, changing road conditions, etc.)

Unlike other self-driving startups, Gatik only works on autonomous vehicles for the middle-mile, which is typically between two destinations run by the same business. For example, Gatik trucks would go back and forth between a company’s distribution warehouse and a retail location. Because middle-mile routes are limited, fixed and repeatable, Gatik’s self-driving systems don’t have to deal with as many variables (new streets, different traffic patterns, etc.) as other, consumer-ended autonomous vehicles. This, in turn, helps its vehicles pass muster with regulators and allows Gatik get to market quickly. For instance, Gatik will make one of the Arkansas routes it drives for Walmart fully driverless this year.

In today’s press announcement, Gatik said that the first trucks from its collaboration with Isuzu North America will be deployed this year.

If you want to learn more about the autonomous middle mile, Gatik will be speaking at our upcoming ArticulATE virtual summit! Get your ticket today!

Gatik Debuts Electric Version of its Autonomous Middle-Mile Delivery Truck

Gatik, which focuses on self-driving vehicles for middle-mile delivery, today announced its electrification strategy and introduced its new Electric Autonomous Box Truck.

The first of Gatik’s electric trucks will be Ford Transit 350 HDs that were developed in partnership with electric drive company Via Motors. The new trucks have an all-electric powertrain, a range of 120 miles and can charge in less than 1.5 hours.

Gatik’s self-driving vehicles handle middle mile delivery, meaning that they transports goods closer to a consumer, but not all the way to them. A typical middle-mile route might be between a warehouse and a store location, and Gatik’s trucks become, in essence, a self-driving conveyor belt between points. Since the trucks travel a fixed route, Gatik can eliminate some of the variables that come with self-driving technology. They don’t, for example, need to constantly calculate new routes through a bunch of different neighborhoods to people’s front doors.

Gatik has previously said that this limited scope makes it easier to get regulatory approval and therefore its self-driving trucks on the road. Walmart announced in December that the Gatik trucks on one of its Bentonville, Arkansas routes will be allowed to remove the safety driver altogether and go full driverless this year.

In December, Walmart also announced that it would be adding Gatik’s truck to a second delivery route between New Orleans and Metairie, LA. That route is where the first of Gatik’s electric trucks will be in operation starting this month.

Electrification of its vehicle fleet is actually a stated goal of Walmart as the giant retailer aims to reach zero emissions by 2040. In addition to fewer emissions, with a recharge time of just 1.5 hours, Gatik’s new electric vehicles can recharge as they are being unloaded and loaded allowing for continuous operation.

The middle mile isn’t the only area where Walmart is testing out electric, self-driving delivery. The retailer has also partnered with electric car maker Cruise to test autonomous grocery delivery in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Last- and middle-mile delivery may also begin to blur in new ways, thanks in part to automation. Walmart has indicated that the middle mile may include consumer pickup stations, allowing people who don’t live near a Walmart store to purchase items from the retailer and pick them up closer to their homes.

Autonomous Middle-Mile Company Gatik Raises $25M

Autonomous vehicle startup Gatik announced today that it has raised a $25 million Series A round of funding. The round was co-led by Wittington Ventures and Innovation Endeavors with participation from FM Capital and Intact Ventures, as well as existing investors Dynamo Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, AngelPad and others. This brings the total amount raised by Gatik to $29.5 million.

Unlike other players in the self-driving delivery space, the Palo Alto, California-based Gatik is focused on the middle-mile — that is, the intra-location routes for a business, for example warehouse to store, store to store, etc.

The advantage of this, from a self-driving vehicle perspective, is that these middle-mile routes are fixed and repeated. This reduces the amount of “thinking” that a self-driving vehicle has to do as it carries goods around because it’s not encountering as many new scenarios. These fixed routes can also help put regulators creating laws around self-driving vehicles more at ease because of their limited scope and reach.

From a business’ perspective, like a grocer, a fleet of autonomous middle-mile vehicles could run all day, every day, ensuring that locations are always fully stocked. In its press announcement, Gatik said that its autonomous vehicles are operating up to seven days a week, 12 hours a day, on single routes up to 300 miles.

Along with its funding announcement, Gatik today also announced that Canada’s Loblaw grocery chain will deploy a fleet of five Gatik vehicles for middle mile delivery in Toronto starting in January 2021. Gatik’s cargo trucks feature temperature control, so they can be used for the transport of cold and frozen foods as well.

In the Loblaw press announcement, Gatik said that its autonomous vehicles will run between automated picking facilities and retail stores, and allows for inventory pooling across multiple location, as well as contactless delivery.

November has been a busy month for autonomous delivery. Last week Walmart announced a partnership with Cruise for self-driving grocery delivery. Nuro announced it had raised another $500 million for its self-driving pod vehicle solution. Part of the reason for all of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has accelerated interest in contactless delivery options to reduce human-to-human interaction.

Gatik has previously worked with Walmart, and says it has conducted 30,000 autonomous orders for multiple Fortune 500 customers across North America.  

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said Gatik raised $22.5 million. We regret the error.

Gatik Launches Self-Driving Box Truck for Middle Mile Deliveries

Gatik, an autonomous vehicle startup focused on middle mile delivery, announced a new self-driving box truck today. The new trucks feature temperature control, allowing them to transport cold and frozen food and goods.

Don’t expect to see these self-driving box trucks in your neighborhood. Gatik’s service is meant for the middle mile, meaning it shuttles deliveries between business locations, not to a consumer’s front door. For example, last year Walmart announced it was using Gatik to move food between its own store locations.

The middle mile is actually ripe for autonomous driving. Self-driving vehicles are good with set routes that are heavily traveled. Keeping within a limited scope of travel means the vehicles’ self-driving systems don’t have to contend with the complexities of traveling through busy neighborhoods, and the limited geography can be more appealing to local regulators wary of unleashing fully autonomous vehicles on public roads.

Gatik’s new self-driving trucks are also arriving during a global pandemic when the world is trying to reduce human-to-human contact. Autonomous vehicles can remove at least one human from the supply chain equation, which, when multiplied across multiple industries, companies, and supply routes can add up pretty quickly.

Autonomous vehicles can also operate without breaks, helping keep stores better stocked, which we’ve seen can be an issue when people are panic shopping. Gatik said it’s been shuttling Walmart deliveries 12 hours each day, 7 days each week since July of last year. 

The COVID-19 outbreak could accelerate the acceptance of autonomous vehicles on the road. Nuro got the greenlight from the state of California to further test its self-driving pod-like vehicles on public roads. Refraction is using its autonomous REV-1 for restaurant and grocery delivery in Ann Arbor, MI. And Starship robots are making food deliveries in Tempe, AZ and in Fairfax, VA.

Gatik says that it has delivered more than 15,000 orders for multiple retail customers across North America and that its new box truck is the first autonomous delivery vehicle with temperature control capabilities. Gatik just might make the middle mile very cool for self-driving vehicles.

The “Middle Mile” in Food Delivery is Just Beginning

Perhaps the future of getting food and other goods delivered to your door isn’t actually in getting them to your door. A Walmart corporate blog post announcing the test of a new initiative with self-driving vehicle startup, Gatik, is the latest in this trend of moving goods between business locations. (hat tip to Grocery Dive)

Walmart’s post explained how it will pilot this self-driving vehicle program with Gatik:

In March, Arkansas passed legislation allowing for autonomous vehicles to operate in the state. With the help of Gatik, we’re making sure we stay on the cutting edge of grocery pickup by testing an autonomous vehicle to move customer orders on a two-mile route in Bentonville between two of our stores. We aim to learn more about the logistics of adding autonomous vehicles into our online grocery ecosystem, operation process changes and more opportunities to incorporate this emerging technology.

Gatik’s trucks will just be moving goods between stores along this “middle-mile” to get goods closer to your home, but not all the way there. Bloomberg reported on the promise of this middle-mile earlier this summer, writing:

As the buzz about human-carting robo-taxis starts to short-circuit, an unheralded segment of the driverless future is taking shape and showing promise: goods-moving robo-vans. Rather than serving up hot pizza pies or deploying headless robots to carry groceries to the doorstep, robo-vans travel on fixed routes from warehouse to warehouse or to a smaller pickup point, transporting packages to get them closer, but not all the way, to consumers.

Walmart is just the latest to explore the middle mile for getting people their stuff. When Uber unveiled its drone delivery program, one thing that stood out was the fact that drones wouldn’t fly burgers to people’s homes. Rather, drones would land at some kind of hub where Uber drivers would pick up the order and take it the last mile to people’s homes.

Zume Pizza operates in a similar fashion. Sifting through its vast amounts of data, Zume knows how many pizzas, and what types of pizza to make on a given night for any given geographic area it serves. Zume then pre-makes (not pre-cooks) those pizzas and sends them out in mobile kitchens parked in designated areas. As orders come in, pizzas are cooked and drivers come and pick up pizzas to take to people’s homes.

Amazon, being Amazon, is looking to bridge the middle-mile with the last mile. Spoon Founder Mike Wolf uncovered a patent this year for an autonomous Amazon robot that would live in people’s homes and automatically go and fetch packages delivered to a centralized pickup center.

The fact that big players like Walmart, Amazon and Uber are all looking at this type of two-step delivery logistics shows that we are at the beginning of the middle-mile, not the end.