Domino's Pizza is taking contact-free delivery to a whole new level. The nationwide pizza chain is introducing autonomous vehicles in Houston's Woodland Heights neighborhood for the pilot program. The robot cars, which received the O-K from the U.S. Department of Transportation last year, will bring the pizzas to customers' homes, and users will retrieve their food with a PIN on the touch screen. The pizza maker previous experimented with a self-driving Ford Fusion in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2017, and a delivery Drone in the U.K. in 2013.
“We’re excited to continue innovating the delivery experience for Domino’s customers by testing autonomous delivery with Nuro in Houston,” said Dennis Maloney, Domino’s senior vice president and chief innovation officer. “There is still so much for our brand to learn about the autonomous delivery space. This program will allow us to better understand how customers respond to the deliveries, how they interact with the robot and how it affects store operations. The growing demand for great-tasting pizza creates the need for more deliveries, and we look forward to seeing how autonomous delivery can work along with Domino’s existing delivery experts to better support the customers’ needs.”
“Nuro’s mission is to better everyday life through robotics. Now, for the first time, we’re launching real world, autonomous deliveries with R2 and Domino’s,” said Dave Ferguson, Nuro co-founder and president. “We’re excited to introduce our autonomous delivery bots to a select set of Domino’s customers in Houston. We can’t wait to see what they think.”
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