Prototype of mobile, driverless supermarket unveiled in Shanghai
It’s the first time you’ve been responsible for cooking dinner and the in-laws are arriving any time, but you just realised you’re missing the key ingredient.
Instead of having to run or drive to the nearest convenience store, you pull out your phone and request the closest mobile supermarket. The driverless shop quickly makes its way to a nearby spot, and you buy that one missing ingredient just by using your phone.
It’s not a scene from the new Blade Runner movie – the self-driving mobile supermarket is now a reality thanks to a Swedish tech company.
The Moby Mart, an artificial intelligence-powered, self-driving convenience store is the result of a collaboration between Wheelys, the Hefei Technical University in China and Himalafy, a tech company focusing on unstaffed retail solutions.
Wheelys has just launched the prototype in Shanghai, but this version is still human controlled, with the self-driving technology still in development, and relying on the relevant government legislation to operate.
The shop runs on electricity powered by solar panels and is designed to be entirely self-sufficient, with tracking software used to monitor when the inventory is running low.
The Moby Mart also comes with an artificial intelligence-powered shop assistant to keep track of shopping habits and even make some recipe recommendations. This means the shop will be able to be open 24/7 without any human intervention too.
Shoppers just need to use their smartphone to scan items and payments will be made through the app.
The supermarket will be controlled by an app on your smartphone. Photo: Supplied
To lessen the risk of stealing, shoppers will have to be members to access the stores.
Wheelys rose to prominence with its successful ‘cafe in a bike’ device which it sells around the world, but its latest offering has taken things to the next level.
It’s once the company tests and installs the self-driving technology that things will get really cool though, along with the prospect of having drones on hand to deliver packages and re-stock the store.
The Moby Mart is the future of physical shopping, Wheelys co-founder Per Cromwell says.
“In the coming decades, retail as we know it will disappear. Stores will become powered by apps, they will become accessible 24/7, and they will become mobile,” Cromwell says.
Products will be purchased by scanning them on the app. Photo: Supplied
“Combined with the possibility to deliver parcels, self re-stocking and AI deployment of big fleets, this is a glimpse of the radical new future of retail, and an existential threat to the world’s convenience stores.”
But don’t get too excited, it’ll probably be quite some time until the Moby Mart comes to Australia.
The Moby Mart is currently only in a prototype phase in Shanghai, and while the company plans to properly deploy them next year, the full version with self-driving technology is still in development and will have to wait for government legislation to catch up.
