Tech giants Apple and Google have already dipped their toes into the autonomous driving waters so it comes as little surprise that Amazon is also eyeing the technology.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the internet retailer formed a team of roughly a dozen people to study how the company can deliver products to consumers more quickly. The team isn’t focused exclusively on autonomous vehicles but it is one of the areas the company is exploring.
In particular, Amazon is reportedly interested in using autonomous trucks which could give its own fleet an advantage over rivals such as FedEx and UPS. The trucks would likely be focused on delivering goods between Amazon facilities as the final delivery of products still requires a human to drop packages off at the door.
Amazon isn’t a complete stranger to the world of autonomous technology as the company has previous revealed Amazon Air. The delivery service intends to use a drone that can travel up to 15 miles (24 km) by itself and then drop packages off at a customer’s home.
The company has also filed an autonomous driving patent which helps vehicles identify the best lane to travel in on multi-lane roads.
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