March 18, 2019—A self-driving car program is being implemented by Two Kroger, according to a report by Fox News. The program would retrieve orders placed at the store and deliver the products to customers doorsteps—without a driver.
The service was created by robotics company Nuro, founded by two individuals who formally worked at Google. According to the station, Kroger and Nuro formed a working partnership last year during a trial run in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The company has already completed thousands of deliveries without drivers in the Arizona market. The company currently uses a Toyota Prius fleet, but is looking to roll out its driverless R1 delivery vehicle in Texas, Fox News reports.
"Initially, we are going to start delivering with our self-driving Prius vehicles, so these are passenger vehicles just like regular Priuses that we've added sensing and computing to so they can drive themselves," Nuro co-founder and president Dave Ferguson told ABC13. "There will still be safety drivers in them."
"We generally feel that when you remove passengers from the vehicle, you can make it much safer for everyone else on the road," Ferguson said to ABC13. "For example, our vehicle is much smaller, it's much lighter, it sort of collapses in the unlikely event of any collision."
To use the device, customers place an order from the markets' website for a $5.95 fee, Fox News reports.
