Ford is partnering with Walmart and Postmates to test the business of delivering goods like groceries and pet food using self-driving vehicles.
The pilot project is focused on Miami-Dade County, according to Ford’s announcement Wednesday. This is an area where Ford is already embedded and testing out what a commercial self-driving vehicle business might look like through collaborations with Postmates, Dominoes and local merchants.
Ford is pursuing two parallels tracks — develop and test the self-driving vehicle system while separately work on the business side of how a dedicated fleet of autonomous vehicles might operate in the real world —as it moves toward its targeted commercial launch in 2021. The company is testing the business model through pilot programs with Dominoes, Postmates, local businesses in the Miami area and now Walmart.