Ford Launching Self-Driving Vehicles For Domino's Pizza Delivery In Miami
- by Chuck Martin , March 2, 2018
Ford is bringing self-driving cars to the streets of Miami and Miami Beach to deliver pizzas from Domino’s.
In collaboration with Miami-Dade County, Ford is testing to prove out a business model, according to Sherif Marakby, vice president, autonomous vehicles and electrification at Ford.
“What we learn from this customer experience research will be applied to the design of our purpose-built self-driving vehicle that we plan to launch in 2021 to support the expansion of our service,” Marakby stated in the Ford announcement.
The goal of the pilot program is to answers a set of questions relating to food delivery via autonomous vehicle. Marakby said the questions are:
- How will employees stock and send off a self-driving vehicle before it makes a delivery?
- At delivery, how will customers interact with the vehicle to retrieve their food or groceries?
- How far from their homes are they willing to walk to get it?
- What benefits could and should people get from a self-driving experience?
“Another way to think about it is to consider the costs of convenience,” stated Marakby. “Today, deliveries can be made to someone’s door, though there is usually an extra charge involved. Oftentimes, drivers illegally double-park when they can’t find a space, potentially causing traffic congestion for others. A self-driving vehicle won’t need to be tipped and it won’t park illegally.”
A new fleet of autonomous vehicles is already on the streets, mapping roads. Ford is also establishing its first autonomous vehicle operations terminal in Miami where it will develop vehicle management processes and house the test fleet.
“Another way to think about it is to consider the costs of convenience,” stated Marakby. “Today, deliveries can be made to someone’s door, though there is usually an extra charge involved. Oftentimes, drivers illegally double-park when they can’t find a space, potentially causing traffic congestion for others. A self-driving vehicle won’t need to be tipped and it won’t park illegally.”
I often wonder if these tech-geeks actually read their own quotes to see how stupid they sound.
Interesting they pick Miami where there is no weather challenges.
Still, NO MENTION of how much this adds to the price of a car. it puts a driver out of work, and instead of "doing business" at your door step, you have to go out to the car to do the phone scan , and hope the door opens to get your food. BUT..............hey no tipping, for walking out to the car to do the self serve.
And the "dangerous" double park?? So where will the robot car go? farther away from the delivery home? How far will the Pizza eater walk to get the pizza car in the Minnesota winter....................These people insult my intelligence.
I for one would call them up and order a Pizza, and ask if it can be delivered by a real person. When they say "NO", I will just cancel the order, just to make a point.
In the Toyota version shown at CES, Mark, a robot comes out of the autonmous vehicle to take the pizza from the car to the front door. You may want to factor that into your cost calculations. Wondering what the pizza of the future might cost?