The Asda in Park Royal has been chosen to be the host store for the UK's largest trial of shopping deliveries using self-driving cars. 

Asda have partnered with Wayve to put together a year-long trial of using self-driving vehicles to help deliver shopping, with the store in Ealing being used as the trial store. 

The self-driving vehicles will join the normal fleet of vehicles and online shopping from the store will continue as normal, but orders will have the chance of being selected to be delivered by the driver-less vehicles. 

During the trial, an Asda employee and a Wayve safety driver in the vehicles to ensure there are no faults and Asda workers will load and unload the vehicle in the normal manner. 

Simon Gregg, Senior Vice President of eCommerce at Asda, said: "Asda has long understood the value of bringing tech innovation to the online grocery sector and we are always looking at new and innovative partnerships to improve delivery options for customers.  

"We believe autonomous technology is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of delivery, not only at our Park Royal store but throughout our nationwide operation. 

"Through our partnership with Wayve, we are trialling this technology to understand how it can assist our busy store operations, whilst also adding a unique, reliable and efficient option for Asda customers to have a whole range of products delivered to their doors." 

Wayve's 'AV2.0' solution uses machine learning to train its AI software to learn from experience how to drive in any environment. This results in AV technology that is not geo-fenced by highly detailed maps or pre-defined routes and can autonomously drive anywhere in its urban domain even to places it's never been to before. 

Alex Kendall, Co-founder & CEO at Wayve said: "We're excited to partner with Asda on the largest urban autonomous grocery delivery trial in Europe.  

"The trial is a demonstration of how autonomy can meet fleet owner needs. We started developing our AV technology over five years ago: it's incredible to see it delivering real value today as part of Asda's daily operations." 

"We value our work with Asda to build the foundations of future autonomous grocery delivery. Trials like this one accelerate our road to deployment.  

"They provide the learnings required to bring the benefits of AV technology to customers sooner while ensuring that businesses, like Asda, are prepared to deploy AVs at scale."