Loblaws is partnering with an American autonomous vehicle company in what's believed to be a Canadian first: taking grocery delivery orders betw

Loblaws partners with self-driving company Gatik in Canadian first: driverless grocery trucks

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2022-10-05 23:30:18

Loblaws is partnering with an American autonomous vehicle company in what's believed to be a Canadian first: taking grocery delivery orders between various Loblaws facilities via self-driving trucks.

There is no human sitting in the driver's seat of a half-dozen trucks adorned with PC Express branding, currently making their way around various Ontario roadways.

It's the latest step in a pilot program launched in 2020 in which trucks operated by Palo Alto, Calif.,-based Gatik ferried various items between Loblaws distribution hubs and a half-dozen retail locations across the Greater Toronto Area.

Although the trucks drive themselves, at first, a safety driver sat behind the wheel. More than 150,000 such trips were quietly done during the pandemic, and after completing all of them without a single safety incident, the two parties decided to take the next step: They sought and received permission from the province to go driverless, though they plan to have the safety driver sit in the passenger seat for now.

If all goes well, the safety driver may one day be removed from the vehicle entirely. While the trucks won't be showing up on customer doorsteps any time soon, drivers will likely see the white trucks with a purple stripe and the words "Groceries on the go" out and about.