Colruyt’s unmanned van delivers first groceries to home

After two months of trial runs in an business district, Belgian Colruyt Group‘s self-driving trolley has now actually delivered groceries to the homes of three customers for the first time.

New phase

Collect&Go, Colruyt Group’s grocery delivery service, has been testing a self-driving electric delivery van on public roads since late November: the autonomous vehicle shuttles between Collect&Go’s distribution centre and the pick-up point at the Colruyt shop in the centre of Londerzeel (near Brussels) and has already covered more than a thousand kilometres.

Today, the test project entered a new phase: for the first time, the Clevon 1 actually delivered groceries to people’s homes. Collect&Go mapped the addresses of thirty customers along the van’s fixed route, and asked them if they wanted their groceries delivered to their homes by the unmanned vehicle.

The first three deliveries have now taken place: as always, customers placed their orders via the Collect&Go website. Then, they were called with a code allowing them to take the groceries out of the trolley. They could also place their folding boxes and empties back into the delivery van. Colruyt will continue the tests over the next few weeks.