Walmart thinks there could be a future in driverless delivery trucks.
The retail giant has begun using driverless trucks in Bentonville, Ark., to move groceries ordered online by shoppers from a Walmart “dark store,” which is a store that stocks items for fulfillment but isn’t open to the public, to one of the company’s Neighborhood Market stores for customer pickups. The truck operates without a safety driver behind the wheel.
Walmart is also testing the technology in a handful of markets in Texas and Louisiana, though in those cases, there is a safety driver on board as a back up.
Walmart’s driverless trucks are supplied by Gatik, a relatively new company for automated, self-driving trucks handling short-haul, middle-mile logistics. The theory behind utilizing the autonomous trucks is that they will help meet the increasing demand to fulfill online orders, keep delivery times short, and will compensate for driver shortages. Gatik also contends that eliminating the human factor reduces the chances for incidents on the roads.
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“Through our work with Gatik, we’ve identified that autonomous box trucks offer an efficient, safe and sustainable solution for transporting goods on repeatable routes between our stores,” said Tom Ward, senior vice president of last mile at Walmart U.S., in a statement.
Ward characterized using driverless delivery trucks as an “industry milestone,” marking the first time that an autonomous trucking company has removed the safety driver from a commercial delivery route on the middle mile anywhere in the world. Walmart, said Ward, “looks forward to continuing to use this technology to serve Walmart customers with speed.”
Since July 2019, Walmart has been testing Gatik’s driverless truck with a safety driver in the vehicle. Last August, the safety driver was removed from the vehicle. The driverless trucks have been making repeated delivery runs per day, seven days a week on public roads.
“Arkansas and Gatik have shifted into the future with Gatik’s self-driving delivery truck,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a statement. “It is fitting that Arkansas, which is home to the greatest retail companies in the world, is the launching pad for this innovation in retail delivery.”
“The plan is to expand to other markets,” Gautam Narang, cofounder and chief executive officer of Gatik, told WWD.
“Gatik has been working with Walmart at its headquarters since summer 2019, but in August of this year, we took the driver out. Everyone has been waiting for this moment.”
Gatik and Walmart are also testing the driverless trucks in the San Antonio and Dallas-Ft. Worth markets in Texas, and in New Orleans. In addition, Gatik is testing its driverless trucks in Toronto, with Loblaw’s, which is Canada’s largest grocery chain.
In those markets, the vehicles are being tested with safety drivers, though according to Narang, “Starting next year, the drivers will start coming out in these markets. It took 24 months before we could safely take the driver out in Bentonville. As we get more data and more experience, it takes less time to take the drivers out.
“We have over 25 trucks in our fleet,” Narang added. “The next step here is scaling and growth. We will be scaling this to other markets in a short time. There are 21 states in the U.S. where we can take the driver out and commercialize our service. Most of these states are along the Southern Belt of the country. These are the markets we will be prioritizing. Walmart and Loblaws are long-term partners.”
Narang said the route for the driverless trucks in Bentonville is a total of 7.1 miles, out and back, but in other cities the routes are longer. “We can drive from miles in the single digits all the way up to 300 miles.”
He said class 3 to class 6, light to medium-duty box trucks, are being used, not semis or tractor trailers. The trucks carry 10,000 pounds to 26,000 pounds of groceries. The boxes that carry the product on the trucks are 11 feet to 26 feet long. Some boxes are refrigerated, some aren’t. The trucks in Bentonville are gas powered, while others are electric. Narang said the trucks in Bentonville will be converted to electric.
Ryder, Goodyear and Koch Industries are investors in Gatik, which was founded in 2017 and has offices in Mountain View, Calif., and Toronto. Ryder leases the trucks to Gatik, and provides maintenance on them. The trucks are retrofitted with Gatik’s driverless technology. Goodyear is providing tire technology for the driverless trucks.
The trucks are manufactured by Isuzu and retrofitted with Gatik technology, including hardware, software, sensors and systems. “There is a backup for everything on the truck,” Narang said.
With operating driverless trucks, the biggest concerns are safety and the costs involved. Narang addressed both.
“By focusing on fixed routes, going back and forth on the same routes, it allows us to know those routes very intimately, predict different road conditions and minimize risk and exposure,” Narang said. “Focusing on a very narrow operational domain allows us to ensure safety. We also avoid schools, hospitals, fire stations, and blind turns. Since it’s b-to-b delivery, with no one on board, we can take a slightly longer but safer route,” when preferred. “The trucks take three right turns wherever possible to not make a left turn, which makes the route slightly longer but safer,” since oncoming traffic in the other direction is avoided.
He also said Gatik has remote supervisors who can approve highway decisions, for anything out of the ordinary. Right now, Gatik is operating out of Bentonvile and Toronto, where there are supervisors.
Narang said Gatik shared 18 months of data with the Arkansas State Highway Commission to get approval to operate the driverless trucks. Narang also said that along with the Arkansas governor, Gatik engaged various state officials as well as local leadership including the mayors of Bentonville and Rogers, Ark., and local emergency services.
“We have a 100 percent safety record,” Narang stated. “If a tree has fallen, or there’s construction, the truck will do a slow stop or pull over. A supervisor will decide.”
Gatik charges a fixed annual fee per truck to the retail client. He said by operating at least three of the vehicles in a particular market, in a couple of years the operation becomes profitable. “Long term as we scale, we will be able to save our customers up to 30 percent of their operating costs,” Narang said.
Thinking out into the future, “We are going to mass produce trucks with our OEM [original equipment manufacturers]. Early 2023 is when we expect to start production,” Narang said.
As previously reported, Gatik has raised $85 million in Series B funding which includes an investment from Ryder’s corporate venture capital fund, RyderVentures. Ryder aims to invest in and partner with early-stage companies that are developing technologies and business models that deliver advancements and automation in the logistics and transportation industries. The funding represents Ryder’s first investment in an autonomous trucking company. Ryder manages nearly 235,000 commercial vehicles and operates more than 300 warehouses encompassing approximately 64 million square feet.