It’s bragging time in Bentonville.
That’s because America’s biggest grocery retailer recently achieved two big milestones in autonomous delivery.
The first milestone is on the autonomous middle-mile front where Walmart and partner Gatik announced they had initiated daily driverless-truck delivery in Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart had started working with the maker of middle-mile autonomous box trucks in 2019 and by last December, the two received approval from the Arkansas State Highway Commission to remove drivers from the vehicles. In August, the two started trialing autonomous delivery runs between Walmart dark stores and local markets. And last week, the companies announced they are doing multiple driver-less truck runs per day, seven days a week.
The other big autonomous delivery news for Walmart is the launch of the company’s drone delivery service.
This week the retailer’s drone partner Zipline announced the two had launched a drone delivery service in the northwestern Arkansas of Pea Ridge. Zipline’s technology utilizes a 25-foot take-off and landing platform which is located directly behind the Walmart Neighborhood Market location in Pea Ridge. There, a Walmart employee hands a package to a Zipline employee, who will then load the package into the belly of the drone for delivery. Once the drone reaches the delivery destination, the package is dropped over its target, where it will float down to earth thanks to an attached biodegradable parachute. The service area is within a 50-mile radius of the store.
The launch of drone delivery has been a long time in the making for Walmart. The company first started testing drones way back in 2015 and, ever since that time, has been running pilots and inking partnerships. In the meantime, Walmart’s competitors have been investigating drone delivery, which is perhaps why the giant retailer has picked up the pace over the past year.
So Walmart appears to be making headway in drones and autonomous middle mile delivery, but what about road or sidewalk delivery to consumers? The last time we heard of Walmart making any moves in that space was when the company trialed with Nuro and Udelv in 2019, but they’ve been relatively quiet on that front. And as for sidewalk bots, the company hasn’t really shown any interest publicly, but that’s not to say they aren’t talking to folks.
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