Domino’s, one of the largest Pizza makers in the world, used the autonomous tech to deliver Pizza and other edible items in Houston, USA
Domino’s Pizza, one of the largest pizza makers in the world, will start delivering pizzas using driverless vehicles later this year. The service will first launch in Houston, Texas, USA before it is available in other states.
The pizza maker has teamed up with Nuro, which is a self-driving start-up for the pilot project. Domino’s will use the fleet of Nuro’s vehicles that are custom-built for deliveries. Domino’s will get to use the full fleet of the Nuro, which has several driverless cars.
The start-up Nuro was founded by a team of ex-Google engineers who were heading the self-driving team. Currently, the Nuro driverless delivery robots are operational and deliver groceries in the Houston area currently. If the pilot project goes well and is successful, then the Nuro R1 robot cars will expand to the other markets as well.
Currently, Nuro has six R1 vehicles that are being used to deliver products around the area. However, in the future, the number of cars will increase. Nuro has not said how many operational vehicles will be launched in the future, but they have recently secured $1 billion in investment from the Japanese technology company and investor SoftBank.
Currently, the brand plans to increase the number of test cars to 50. The test cars are used to take readings, which is then used to develop autonomous software and hardware. The Nuro R1 vehicles are specifically designed to hold as many products as possible. In its current form, the R1 car can carry as many as 12 grocery bags.
It is not known how the Pizza delivery system will work but highly likely, Nuro will modify the vehicles with compartments to deliver the Pizzas and also keep them warm while transporting.
Domino’s earlier partnered with Ford to test out the driverless Pizza delivery system in the USA in 2017. Customers had to put in the code that they received in their phones in the car to get access to the Pizzas.