Wayfair joins JB Hunt’s AV truck pilot in Texas

Dive Transient:

• J.B. Hunt and Waymo’s autonomous automobile pilot in Texas will ship shipments for Wayfair starting this summer season, the businesses introduced late final month.
• A driver and a software program technician will monitor the Waymo Driver autonomous driving system from the cab because the Class 8 AV hauls the furnishings retailer’s merchandise alongside the I-45 hall between Houston and Dallas, the route the place the service debuted the truck know-how final 12 months.
• The pilot will function for greater than six weeks in July and August, offering Wayfair with “real-time testing” of the AV’s capabilities, Craig Harper, J.B. Hunt chief sustainability officer and govt vp, stated within the announcement.

Dive Perception:

J.B. Hunt and Waymo’s 260-mile take a look at AV truck pilot final summer season hauled greater than 862,000 kilos of freight with no accidents and a “100% on-time pick-up and supply” charge, in line with the businesses.

However they declined, on the time, to disclose whose merchandise the vehicles had been hauling — describing the enterprise solely as “one in every of J.B. Hunt’s main prospects.”

The collection of Wayfair because the pilot’s first publicly recognized consumer this summer season underscores J.B. Hunt and Waymo’s ambitions for dealing with the trickiest — and most unwieldy — sorts of freight, which embody furnishings.

“Each provide chain is exclusive, so it’s necessary that prospects can work alongside J.B. Hunt and Waymo to make sure that superior autonomous know-how will create capability that meets their wants,” Harper stated.

Wayfair’s first foray into large-scale, AV freight dealing with gives the retailer an opportunity to share suggestions with the service and its tech associate on the pilot from the angle of a high-volume shipper providing over 33 million merchandise from 23,000 suppliers.

Sean Halligan, Wayfair’s chief international provide chain officer, stated in an announcement that the AV pilot is a part of the furnishings retailer’s “general technique to evolve our logistics methods and end-to-end provide chain options.”

The pilot will additional consider the Waymo Driver and J.B. Hunt 360’s capabilities, together with automated supply logistics, freight loading and unloading, examine calls and different autonomous capabilities. J.B. Hunt 360 is the corporate’s digital loadboard.

“We couldn’t be extra delighted to work alongside firms who share our progressive spirit and pleasure for what autonomous driving know-how can imply for the trucking trade,” stated John Verdon, trucking lead, enterprise improvement and partnerships at Waymo.