Estonian technology company Clevon has succesfuly delivered groceries for the first time to the front door of Collect&Go customers using its new unmanned vehicle, Clevon 1.
Collect&Go, Colruyt Group’s online shopping service, has been testing the vehicle since last year. The Clevon 1, which combines remote teleoperation with advanced autopilot functionality, covered its 1,000th kilometre on public roads in Londerzeel, in Belgum, in December.
On the route, from Londerzeel distribution centre to the Collect&Go collection point and back, the residential locations of thirty Collect&Go customers were identified.
Those people were reached out to in January asking if they would like to have their groceries delivered to their home by the unmanned vehicle and a week later the first three home deliveries on the route took palce.
Within this test, the customers placed their orders as normal via the Collect&Go website before they were contacted in person with a code allowing them to remove the groceries from the trolley.
The CLEVON 1 then left from the Collect&Go collection point in Londerzeel to the customer’s home who, in turn, had the option to place folding boxes and empty bottles for deposit back in the CLEVON 1.
Speaking about the pilot project, Tom De Prater, business unit manager for Collect&Go said, “Online grocery shopping is an important pillar for Colruyt Group and it is our ambition to be and remain best of class in this. In a rapidly changing e-commerce context, we are therefore constantly looking for ways to organise the ‘last mile’ as efficiently and sustainably as possible.
“There is already a worldwide shortage of drivers, the cost of those last kilometres is sky-high and mobility in cities is a real challenge. Investing in innovation, new solutions and state-of-the-art technologies is therefore crucial. This pilot project obviously fits in with that. We are enthusiastic about the potential, at the same time we are very realistic and will proceed step by step.”
Collect&Go said that further tests will take place in the coming weeks.
