More AI grocery deliveries as Loblaws strikes deal for 50 self-driving trucks in Ontario

Gautam Narang, CEO and co-founder of Gatik, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss Loblaws' expanded partnership with Gatik for North America's largest rollout of autonomous trucks.

More self driving trucks will be carrying freight for Loblaws in the Greater Toronto Area by the end of this year.

The grocery chain signed a five year deal with U.S. based startup, Gatik to put 50 autonomous trucks on the road tasked with delivering time sensitive groceries and household items to 300 Loblaw stores.

“The goal is to remove reliance on drivers and get more trucks on the road,” Gautam Narang, Gatik’s CEO and co-founder told BNN Bloomberg.ca

“Being able to go from driver in, to driver out is the biggest contributor for having profitable margins and very healthy margins,” said Narang, who already works with large U.S. brands like Walmart and Kroger.

He calls this agreement with Loblaws, “the largest rollout of autonomous trucks in North America”.

“We are focusing on scaling the fleet in Canada, and doubling down on our commitment towards Canada,” said Narang.

Loblaw’s reliance on autonomous cars is not new. It paired with Gatik to place five trucks on the road in the Greater Toronto Area in 2020.

Today, it has 10 trucks. Narang says with the new deal, the company plans to put 20 trucks on the road by the end of this year, and another 30 by the end of next year.

“We’re starting out with over five years today, but Loblaws has also joined Gatik as a strategic investor,” said Narang. “The vision (is) that we have to roll out our solution, our technology across their supply chain is highly aligned,” said Narang.

Safety driver on board

The autonomous trucks will hit the road with a safety driver on board for the first few months after deployment.

Narang said the responsibility of the driver is to oversee the autonomous driving system. After the company’s AI system understands the network and the routes, and the team completes its safety validation, it will remove the safety driver on board.

“Proud to say that we have never had any incident or any accident while the system was in autonomous mode on public roads,” said Narang.

He said the company focuses its autonomous trucking technology within a nearly 500 kilometre range. It can handle complex driving scenarios like on and off ramps, intersections and pedestrian navigation. It also has cameras and radars designed for day and night operations.

Right now, it can handle Ontario’s fair weather conditions, but isn’t ready for extreme weather just yet.

“We do light rain,” said Narang. ”Light snow is fine. Heavy downpour. Heavy snow is something that is further down the roadmap in terms of the time of operation,” said Narang.

Ontario pushing for more autonomous trucks

Loblaws says Gatik worked closely with Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation to help shape the development of the Automated Commercial Motor Vehicle (ACMV) Pilot Program which launched On Aug. 1,according to a news release.

The province says the ten year pilot program runs until Aug 1. 2035, and will allow participants to test their automated technology on provincial roads in order to improve road safety and support the trucking sector.