Ford, Walmart partner to deliver groceries to your doorstep in self-driving cars

Ford is making it easier for people to get their groceries by using their self-driving cars to deliver groceries directly to their doorstep.

Automobile manufacturer Ford and retail store Walmart announced on Wednesday about their new partnership with Postmates delivery service to bring the grocery store’s products right to the customers’ homes via their self-driving Ford vehicles.

The test program will initially take place in Miami. However, at the start the partnership will not involve any autonomous vehicles at all. An executive at Ford’s autonomous vehicle unit, Brian Wolf said in a blog post that initially human drivers will use ‘research vehicles’ that are specifically designed to imitate the self-driving vehicles to complete the deliveries.

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According to Futurism, they will gradually collect data about different customers’ preferences. Eventually, these human driven vehicles will be replaced by Ford’s autonomous vehicles. It says that it will experiment with various vehicle types, along with modifications to those vehicles needed to keep the perishable food items fresh.

The company will also experiment with different scenarios like multiple deliveries on one trip and the user experience of retrieving delivery items from a completely driverless vehicle. The vehicles will have a safety driver on front seat and will have a touchscreen on the car window to provide instructions and gives access to the trunk, as per Mashable.

“Through this collaboration, we are exploring how self-driving vehicles can deliver many everyday goods such as groceries, diapers, pet food and personal care items,” wrote Ford.

Ford didn’t say when will the service be launched on a wider scale, but the firm stated that they have plans to have commercial autonomous vehicles ready by 2021.