Kroger Co. and Nuro today announced Scottsdale, Arizona as the city for their self-driving grocery delivery pilot.
Earlier this summer, Kroger, America’s largest supermarket retailer, and Nuro, maker of the world’s first driverless delivery vehicle, announced a partnership to begin testing grocery delivery using Nuro’s robots. Through the new self-driving delivery vehicles, customers will receive their groceries at their curb – safely and quickly.
“Scottsdale is proud to be the home of Kroger and Nuro’s partnership,” said Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane. “We welcome innovative technology that can benefit the lives of Scottsdale residents. We feel this partnership holds tremendous potential and promise, and offers our residents real, not-yet-experienced convenience for everyday routines.”
“We’re excited to launch our autonomous vehicle delivery pilot with Fry’s in Scottsdale,” said Kroger Chief Digital Officer Yael Cosset. “Kroger wants to bring more customers the convenience of affordable grocery delivery, and our pilot with Nuro will help us test and learn to understand customer acceptance of autonomous vehicles in our seamless offering. We thank Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane, and the Scottsdale community for being terrific partners and for supporting customer-focused innovation.”
“Arizona is home to some of the most innovative autonomous vehicle testing,” said Nuro Co-Founder Dave Ferguson. “We’re proud to contribute and turn our vision for local commerce into a real, accessible service that residents of Scottsdale can use immediately. Our goal is to save people time, while operating safely and learning how we can further improve the experience.”
The first phase of the test will use a fleet of Toyota Prius cars equipped with Nuro technology. Those cars have seats for humans who can override autonomous systems in the event of an error or emergency. Nuro’s R1 driverless delivery van, which has no seats, will begin testing this autumn, the companies said.
Self-driving car delivery from the Fry’s store will cost $5.95 with no minimum order. It is only available at addresses within the store’s zip code of 85257, Kroger said.
Walmart and Alphabet Inc’s self-driving car company Waymo are partnering to test a service that shuttles Phoenix shoppers to stores to collect online grocery orders.
