Technology
Domino's Pizza is now being delivered by self-driving robot vehicles.
Domino's Pizza will begin delivering pizzas through Nuro driverless cars as part of a pilot program this week, according to the company. A Nuro R2 robot can deliver pizza to "select customers" in Houston who place a prepaid delivery order from the company's store on specific dates and times, according to the company.
The pizza delivery will operate like this: a customer places and pays for orders online from the Woodland Heights store, then chooses to have the order delivered by the R2. The customer receives a unique PIN as well as updates on the vehicle's location via text warning. The customer enters the PIN on the touch screen of the robot car when it arrives, which unlocks the R2's doors. Then there's pizza.
Last February, Nuro's R2 became the first self-driving vehicle to obtain regulatory approval from the US Department of Transportation, granting it a special exemption from federal safety regulations. Nuro was founded in 2018 by two former Google engineers, and in 2019 they partnered with Domino's for a pizza delivery pilot in Houston.
Nuro was founded in 2018 by two former Google engineers, and in 2019 they partnered with Domino's for a pizza delivery pilot in Houston, which is now live.
In Houston, Nuro vehicles are already being used for food deliveries and CVS Pharmacy deliveries. Nuro announced in April that it would use its vehicles to move medical supplies across two California stadiums that had been turned into treatment centers for COVID-19 patients.
