As part of a year-long pilot, Asda customers in West London can now have their shopping delivered using Wayve’s self-driving vehicles.
This is the UK’s largest autonomous grocery home shopping delivery trial to date, allowing Asda to autonomously deliver groceries to a catchment area of over 170,000 residents.
The Wayve self-driving vehicles will join Asda’s existing online delivery fleet at the Park Royal superstore in West London.
During the 12-month trial, an Asda colleague and supervising Wayve safety driver will remain in the vehicles. The Asda colleagues will load and unload the groceries, but they will be autonomously transported from store to door in the Wayve vehicle.
This trial is the first in the UK to launch into commercial operations without altering the store’s online delivery processes.
Simon Gregg, Vice President of eCommerce at Asda, said:Asda has long understood the value of bringing tech innovation to the online grocery sector and we are always looking at new and innovative partnerships to improve delivery options for customers. We believe autonomous technology is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of delivery, not only at our Park Royal store but throughout our nationwide operation.
The launch of this trial follows a two-year partnership between Asda and Wayve to develop a self-driving vehicle solution for the grocery market.
Wayve’s AV2.0 programme uses machine learning to train its AI software to learn from experience, enabling it to drive anywhere in its urban domain without being geofenced by detailed maps.
Alex Kendall, Co-founder & CEO at Wayve, said:We’re excited to partner with Asda on the largest urban autonomous grocery delivery trial in Europe. The trial is a demonstration of how autonomy can meet fleet owner needs. We started developing our AV technology over five years ago: it’s incredible to see it delivering real value today as part of Asda’s daily operations.
Trials like this one accelerate our road to deployment. They provide the learnings required to bring the benefits of AV technology to customers sooner while ensuring that businesses, like Asda, are prepared to deploy AVs at scale.
