The Grocery Store Of The Future Is Mobile, Self-Driving, And Run By AI

In Shanghai, a prototype of a new 24-hour convenience store has no staff, no registers, and the whole thing is on wheels, designed to eventually drive itself to a warehouse to restock, or to a customer to make a delivery. The startup behind it believes that it's the model for the grocery store of the future–and because it's both mobile and far cheaper to build and operate than a typical store, it could also help bring better access to groceries to food deserts and rural areas. In a dense urban neighborhood with high rents, the low-cost system could make it possible for a group of neighbors to launch their own local grocery. "The biggest costs to have a store are the place itself to rent in a central city–it's ultra-expensive–and then staff is really expensive, and we're removing both of these at the same time," says Tomas Mazetti, one of the founders of Wheelys, the Sweden-based startup that is developing the store along with China's Hefei University and Himalayafy, an offshoot of Wheelys focused on the technology inside the store. Wheelys already makes small mobile coffee carts designed to help young entrepreneurs compete with chains like Starbucks when they don't have the funds to rent space for a standard cafe.