Kroger rolls out driverless cars for grocery deliveries

Fry's customer service representative Yuri Alvarado puts groceries into the self-driving Nuro vehicle parked outside a Fry's supermarket, which is owned by Kroger, as part of a pilot program for grocery deliveries Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Kroger Co. has chosen the Phoenix suburb as a test market for delivering groceries using driverless cars. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona: At a time when big-box retailers are trying to offer the same conveniences as their online competitors, the biggest US grocery chain is testing the use of driverless cars to deliver groceries in a Phoenix suburb. 

Kroger’s pilot programme launched Aug 16 morning with a robotic vehicle parked outside one of its own Fry’s supermarkets in Scottsdale. A store clerk loaded the back seat with full grocery bags. A man was in the driver’s seat and another was in the front passenger seat with a laptop. Both were there to monitor the car’s performance.