Kroger, Nuro Join Up For Self-Driving Car-Based Grocery Deliveries

The combination of groceries, mobile payments, and delivery systems takes grocery shopping to a whole new level. Instead of pushing that squeaky cart through aisles, imagine being able to shop for groceries the same way you’d shop for DVDs on Amazon: find your item, click a tab, pay for the filled cart and receive your groceries in about a half-hour or so. A new arrangement between Kroger and Nuro is set to step this concept up a notch by using self-driving cars as a delivery service.

Right now, the test will be limited to one Fry’s Food and Drug outlet in Scottsdale, Arizona. This should, naturally, make pretty much everyone else in the United States very disappointed. There is a fee for the delivery, a flat $5.95 per order, with no minimum order size. So if you’re ready to pay eight dollars or so for a two-liter of Coke, you can have that delivered right to your door.

Don’t think you’ll replace a Sam’s Club run with this service, though; the Nuro vehicles aren’t bottomless in storage, capable of carrying a total of 12 filled grocery bags. The Scottsdale test won’t be using Nuro vehicles, but rather Toyota Prius cars, which are apparently about the same size. Since the Priuses are likewise self-driving, the early test will allow for a level of learning that will ultimately give the Nuro vehicles a leg up as well.

Now this might well be a worthwhile solution to use in place of drone aircraft. While drone aircraft can go straight from the delivery point to the delivery destination—as the crow flies, basically—self-driving cars have to take roads, obey speed limits, deal with traffic and so on. The self-driving car has a distinct advantage in that it is much more likely to be accepted as a solution by skittish government officials. In fact, it might well suggest the beginning of a bifurcated delivery system: shorter hops get the car, longer jaunts get the drone aircraft.

Regardless of the form, delivery systems make a lot of sense. There are too many opportunities for value here, and in the end, businesses likely want to offer these services as much as or more than customers want to put them to use.