Ford, Walmart to collaborate on designing automated vehicle delivery

Ford Motor and Walmart and delivery service Postmates Inc will work together to design a service for providing groceries and other goods to Walmart clients that could someday use autonomous vehicles, the companies stated on Wednesday.

The project is the recent to develop out of Ford’s wider effort to develop businesses that could use automated delivery automobiles. Ford was collaborating with San Francisco-based Postmates already to make delivery services that could employ automated automobiles.

The Walmart pilot, which will occur in the Miami area, at first will use human-driven vehicles operated to simulate how a self-driving vehicle would behave, Ford stated. Ford stated it expects to release commercial production of automated automobiles by 2021.