Walmart in partnership with Gatik announced on Monday that Gatik is operating daily without a safety driver behind the wheel of its delivery route for Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas. According to a press release the company made via Business Wire.
The announcement on Monday that Gatik was operating daily without safety drivers behind the wheel on its delivery route for Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas, moving customer orders between a Walmart dark store and a Neighborhood Market in its fleet of multi-temperature autonomous box trucks.
A huge move in technology, and where the future may be heading for retailers everywhere.
“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. “We’re thrilled to be working with Gatik to achieve this industry-first, driverless milestone in our home state of Arkansas and look forward to continuing to use this technology to serve Walmart customers with speed.”
“Arkansas and Gatik have shifted into the future with Gatik’s self-driving delivery truck,” said Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. “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.”
“This milestone signifies a revolutionary breakthrough for the autonomous trucking industry,” said Gautam Narang, CEO and co-founder, Gatik. “Our deployment in Bentonville is not a one-time demonstration. These are frequent, revenue-generating, daily runs that our trucks are completing safely in a range of conditions on public roads, demonstrating the commercial and technical advantages of fully driverless operations on the middle mile. We’re thrilled to enable Walmart’s customers to reap the benefits.”
In December of 2020, Walmart and Gatik received the Arkansas State Highway Commission’s first ever approval to remove the safety driver from autonomous trucks operated by Gatik. This followed 18 months of successful operations without an incident.
As part of its roadmap to operating fully driverless, Gatik undertook a comprehensive stakeholder engagement strategy, involving state and local leadership and emergency services, and will continue to hold ongoing informational workshops concerning its ground-breaking autonomous operations.
