With half a dozen vehicles equipped with Argo technology, the service will be available in Miami, Washington, and Austin, Texas.
Ford Motor has teamed up to test the delivery of groceries by self-driving cars in three different cities.
Argo stated Wednesday that the service will begin in Miami, Washington, and Austin, Texas. It will only be available in certain areas, but will expand over time. Two trained test drivers will also be present in the vehicle to ensure safety. The service will begin with half a dozen vehicles equipped with Argo technology.
Bryan Salesky (founder and chief executive of Argo) said that the collaboration brings to life our focus on testing and developing self-driving technology in urban areas. We’re demonstrating the potential for autonomous vehicle delivery services on a large scale by working together with Walmart, Ford and other markets.
Ford and Argo, which also includes Volkswagen as an investor, and partner, have also formed an alliance to Lyft in order to offer self-driving car rides. The service will be launched in Miami this year, and expanded to Austin next year. Argo has tested about 150 autonomous cars in six U.S. towns.
Waymo, a company that autonomously drives, is owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent. It has been operating in Phoenix for several year and has tested a limited driverless ride-hailing system.
Automakers and technology companies had hoped that self-driving cars would be a big success a few years back, but it turned out that the process of developing the technology was much more complicated and challenging than they expected.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, stated that his company would have one-million self-driving taxis in the market by 2020. It has not yet demonstrated vehicles that can drive themselves, without the assistance of a human driver.