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Walmart charts new course for driverless deliveries in Northwest Arkansas

Walmart will operate its autonomous vehicle pilot route in Bentonville driverless next year, making the deliveries truly driverless for the first time.

BENTONVILLE, Arkansas — On Tuesday (Dec. 15), Walmart announced a new milestone in a pilot that’s been happening in Northwest Arkansas with autonomous vehicle company, Gatik. 

Since Walmart began its autonomous vehicle pilot with Gatik to move customer orders on a two-mile route between a dark store (a store that stocks items for fulfillment but isn’t open to the public) and a Neighborhood Market in Bentonville last year, it has safely driven more than 70,000 operational miles in autonomous mode with a safety driver.

Gatik’s Autonomous Box Trucks can now operate without a safety driver, so Walmart is taking the next step forward and will operate this route driverless in Bentonville next year, making the deliveries truly driverless for the first time. 

Tom Ward, SVP of Customer Product, Walmart U.S., said "When we begin incorporating driverless Box Trucks into the Bentonville operation next year, the pilot will continue as it always has. But now, we’ll be working with Gatik to monitor and gather new data to help us stay on the leading edge of driverless autonomous vehicles."

The company has tested multi-temperature Autonomous Box Trucks on a small scale in Bentonville and says it has learned how it could use self-driving vehicles to transfer customer orders from a dark store to a live store.

"With 90% of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart, a closer store isn’t always the answer. Perhaps it’s just a pickup location, with an autonomous vehicle making deliveries on a constant loop. Our trials with Gatik are just two of many use cases we’re testing with autonomous vehicles, and we’re excited to continue learning how we might incorporate them in a delivery ecosystem."

The pilot is now expanding to a second location early next year, a 20-mile route between New Orleans and Metairie, Louisiana, where it will deliver items from a Supercenter to a Walmart pickup point. The Autonomous Box Trucks in Louisiana will initially operate with a safety driver.

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