Startup AutoX on Monday announced the Silicon Valley debut of a service that will turn self-driving cars into mobile grocery shops summoned with a touch of a smartphone application.

The service will kick off this month in parts of the California city of San Jose in a partnership with e-commerce company GrubMarket.com which sources food from producers as well as retail shops such as Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

"We're very excited to launch the first autonomous grocery delivery and mobile store service in the heart of Silicon Valley with self-driving vehicles on the road," said AutoX founder and chief executive Jianxiong Xiao.

"We believe self-driving car technologies will fundamentally change people's daily lives for the better."

The AutoX application can be used to place grocery orders to be delivered in cars designed to keep produce chilled, according to the startup.

Customers uncertain of what they want in advance will also be able to have cars pull up and open windows so they can browse selections, AutoX said. A human back-up driver will be on board as required by local regulations.

AutoX vehicles rely on high-resolution camera gear instead of more costly sensors and laser arrays for navigation.

The grocery delivery and mobile store pilot program will roll out in San Jose, then expand to Google's home city Mountain View and Palo Alto, where Stanford University is located.

Toyota set to team up with Uber on driverless cars: report
San Francisco (AFP) Aug 27, 2018 - Toyota is poised to pump about $500 million into Uber as part of a deal to collaborate on self-driving vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The investment was said to value Uber about $72 billion, and would come after the smartphone-summoned ride service throttled back its solo effort to develop autonomous vehicle technology.

San Francisco-based Uber did not respond to a request for comment.

Uber last month took a step toward restarting its autonomous ridesharing program, putting its self-driving cars back on the road in "manual mode," with a driver at the wheel at all times.

The company said at the time that its specially equipped vehicles would be back in service for the first time since it suspended tests following a fatal accident in Arizona.

The testing will enable Uber to gather data on different scenarios that will be recreated in computer simulations, and also develop more accurate mapping for the vehicles.

Uber had suspended its self-driving car program after a crash that killed a woman pushing a bicycle in a street in Arizona in March of this year.

Uber is among a number of technology and car companies racing toward what some contend is an inevitable future in which vehicles drive themselves.

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