Walmart to begin deliveries with driverless trucks in 2021

San Francisco: Taking its autonomous vehicle pilot with a startup called Gatik to the next level, retail giant Walmart is now planning to start deliveries with driverless truck in the US state Arkansas starting next year.

"This achievement marks a new milestone that signifies the first-ever driverless operation carried out on the supply chain middle-mile for both Gatik and Walmart," Tom Ward, Senior Vice President of Customer Product, Walmart US, said in a statement.

The move comes after Walmart last year began an 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, Arkansas. The pilot has since then registered over 70,000 operational miles in an autonomous mode with a safety driver. "Now, we are taking the next step forward: Gatik's multi-temperature autonomous box trucks will operate this route driverless in the state of Arkansas," Ward said. "When we begin incorporating driverless Box Trucks into the Bentonville operation , the pilot will continue as it always has," he added.