Walmart announced Tuesday that it is launching a pilot program in Scottsdale, Arizona, for all-electric self-driving car deliveries. The effort is being done in conjunction with the self-driving car company Cruise, which is owned by General Motors.

The pilot will launch next year and is part of Walmart’s goal to reach zero emissions by 2040.

“Customers can place an order from their local store and have it delivered, contact-free, via one of Cruise’s all-electric self-driving cars,” Tom Ward, SVP of Customer Product for Walmart U.S., said in a blog post this week. “Technology that has the potential to not only save customers time and money but also is helpful to the planet is technology we want to learn more about.”

Cruise is also described by Walmart as “the only self-driving car company to operate an entire fleet of all-electric vehicles powered with 100% renewable energy.”

Founded in San Francisco in 2013, Cruise was acquired by General Motors in 2016.

“Cruise is partnering with Walmart, the world’s largest grocery delivery company,” Cruise said on its website. “Together, we will learn how autonomous vehicles can positively impact delivery experiences for customers in a way that’s also sustainable for our planet.

Walmart, in late 2019, had launched a similar pilot program, in the Houston area, with a self-driving car company called Nuro, and has also done work with other self-driving car companies like the Alphabet subsidiary Waymo. Walmart has also taken steps towards drone deliveries, also with multiple companies as their partners.

The new self-driving car program is one of many initiatives announced by Walmart this fall. The company launched Walmart+, its Amazon Prime competitor, in September, of which grocery delivery is a major part. The company had launched a grocery delivery service for the first time in late 2019.

The company is also planning to split its Black Friday deals into three separate events and even got in on the government’s deal with Oracle and TikTok.

Most of the major breakthroughs involving autonomous or self-driving cars in recent years have involved delivery in some way, while most of the proposed applications involving the technology and mass transit have not come to fruition.

One reason for that has been concerns over safety. And ironically, the first-ever self-driving car death of a pedestrian in the United States, the Uber crash that killed a woman back in March of 2018, also took place in Arizona, where Walmart is launching its pilot program. In that case, however, there was a test driver in the car at the time, per the Arizona Republic.

 Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.