FOCUS – The group is launching a “mobile drive” for rural areas.
Students on the Saclay plateau will no longer have to take their car to go shopping. The height of chic, they will be able to have it delivered… in an autonomous electric vehicle. Carrefour launched this Monday, on the forecourt of the École Polytechnique, its first “mobile drive” dedicated to the delivery of areas far from shops. An autonomous truck, containing eighteen lockers filled with orders taken online, will be parked on campus daily from 5 to 7 p.m. Students will be able to collect their shopping using a code that opens their locker.
“For the first time, an autonomous shuttle will travel on the roads, at a maximum speed of 70 kilometers per hour, from our Carrefour market store in Massy to serve students on the Saclay plateau.rejoices Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour. This new service will allow us to provide a complete e-commerce offer in isolated areas.” In many rural areas, it is currently not possible to have home delivery because this service is not profitable for distributors. Ultimately, the deployment of autonomous vehicles could be a game-changer because they save a driver’s salary.
Tests in the United States
In the test phase, the autonomous utility will have to accommodate a human being ready to intervene in the event of the unexpected. But in six months, he should be doing his rounds on his own. “We estimate that eventually, an operator should be able to remotely supervise up to ten autonomous shuttles“, predicts Frédéric Mathis, CEO of Milla, who built in Le Mans the autonomous utility vehicle used by Carrefour. The “mobile drive” also has the advantage of being able to stop at variable locations. “Pick-up lockers take up space and offer less flexibility“, explains Élodie Perthuisot, director in charge of digital transformation at Carrefour.
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For Carrefour, this first round is still above all a test value, and the distributor has not yet quantified the future national deployment of this new service. However, he is far from the only one to test the autonomous delivery of his orders placed online. Distributors compete in inventiveness to optimize their delivery services. The aim is to deliver faster, more ecologically and, if possible, less expensively. In the United States, Walmart offers delivery of its products in autonomous vehicles in Arizona and is testing delivery by drone, just like its great rival Amazon. These are self-driving vehicles that also deliver to Kroger customers in Houston, Texas.
Autonomous delivery reduces pollution in the city and lowers the cost of delivery
Europe is no exception. Goggo Network, the start-up that operates autonomous deliveries on behalf of Carrefour, is already circulating its delivery robots in Zaragoza and Madrid. She is in discussions with Zara and Ikea. Next year, new autonomous vehicles will hit the streets of Oxford and Munich. The use cases are not limited to sparsely populated rural areas. “In the city center too, autonomous delivery has a future, believes Yasmine Fage, co-founder of Goggo Network. It reduces pollution in the city and lowers the cost of delivery because labor represents 70% to 80% of the cost of the last mile.”
Regulations remain a major obstacle. In France, Carrefour has just obtained authorization to run its vehicle on a circuit… of 15 kilometres. “I hope for a more favorable regulatory framework at the national level within one or two yearsexplains Yasmine Fage. Without it, the Americans and the British will get ahead of us.»