Domino's Market Tests A Self-Driving Pizza Delivery Car (cnn.com) 145
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
Someday soon your Domino's Pizza could be delivered to you -- without an actual delivery person. Ford and Domino's are testing out a specially-equipped Ford Fusion that comes not only with self-driving technology but also an oven. It sounds cool but there is a catch -- there's no one to walk the pizza to your front door and ring the bell. That's what Ford and Domino's say they're really testing. "How will customers react to coming outside to get their food?" Domino's president Russell Weiner said in a statement, "We need to make sure the interface is clear and simple."
During the testing phase, an engineer and a driver will be in the car -- but the windows will be heavily tinted so customers can't see them. And both have been instructed not to interact with people at all. Domino's wants to see how well customers deal with coming out and getting their own pie from what is, basically, a pizza ATM built into the car. To get their pizzas, customers will have to enter a number on the touchpad, then a back window will lower, revealing the pizza. Over the next five weeks, randomly selected customers around Ann Arbor, Michigan, will be offered the option of getting their pizza delivered by the hi-tech "driverless" car.
During the testing phase, an engineer and a driver will be in the car -- but the windows will be heavily tinted so customers can't see them. And both have been instructed not to interact with people at all. Domino's wants to see how well customers deal with coming out and getting their own pie from what is, basically, a pizza ATM built into the car. To get their pizzas, customers will have to enter a number on the touchpad, then a back window will lower, revealing the pizza. Over the next five weeks, randomly selected customers around Ann Arbor, Michigan, will be offered the option of getting their pizza delivered by the hi-tech "driverless" car.
College Campus (Score:3)
Perfect testing ground.
Re:College Campus (Score:4, Funny)
Since I don't have to tip, I am for it.
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There are a multitude of reasons I tip well for all my delivery food. This is one.
Another is because I've had several delivery persons tell us that when they head out with multiple orders, if our house is on the list, we go to the top immediately. People you treat well tend to return the favor, who would have guessed?
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you tip the driver, not the people working the counter. If you tip a driverless car by adding a tip to your credit card order, Domino's is going to keep 100% of that extra money and not tell the employee's about it. It's not like a restaurant where the waitress tips the busboy for turning over her tables faster. I've only ever heard of a few mom+pop places where the tips are community property divided equally among employees. You can bet your ass Domino's isn't one.
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You don't have to use a Ford Fusion as your delivery vehicle. A golf cart or motorcycle with an oven sidecar would work fine. And conceptually it could cook the pizza while traveling. On a college campus, I'd worry more about the customers finding ways to bypass the payment step.
The big problem is probably going to be that the technology to navigate a target rich environment without hitting anything/anybody doesn't exist and is probably going to be way harder to develop than most folks think.
I recall tha
Technology of self-driving vehicles: Not ready. (Score:2)
Free pizza for hackers?
"The big problem is probably going to be that the technology to navigate a target rich environment without hitting anything/anybody doesn't exist and is probably going to be way harder to develop than most folks think."
That seems correct to me. The technology of self-driving vehicles seems to me to be far from ready for common use.
how? (Score:2)
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They're hungry. If they weren't, they wouldn't have ordered a pizza. Odds are that they'll walk out to the curb to get it.
Food brought to them (Score:2)
They're hungry. If they weren't, they wouldn't have ordered a pizza. Odds are that they'll walk out to the curb to get it.
On the other hand, they didn't go take the pizza themselves from some take-away (= actually very popular here around at several italian restaurants. much better quality than Domino, btw).
Instead they specifically order that the food be brought to their place.
The reasons that they choose not to go out to a take-away might still apply and be reasons not to get to the car.
e.g.: they live in an upper floor of a stairs-only/no-elevator appartment complex, or the elevator is broken, and they can't walk easily (on
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This is not progress. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, the pizza comes to my door. I don't need to put shoes on or a coat. This customer experience is worse. Why would I choose it when there are other pizza deliveries that will still deliver to the door.
It would have to be significantly cheaper...
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I should think it should at least be faster .... if there's an oven in the car then it should be able to complete the cook on the way to the house.
If they just mean a warming oven, then meh. I generally had to go out of the apartment when I lived in one to get the pizza anyway, none of the drivers had a clue where apartment 23 of 50 was.
Re:This is not progress. (Score:4, Funny)
I can just imagine the chaos caused by sub-100 IQ people (and hung-over higher IQ ones) opening a hot pizza oven.
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I was envisioning the "pizza ATM" in the summary to handle that part, and keep their filthy mitts off my pizza.
If I found it was at all trivial to get at anything but my pizza, it would be my last order... it's bad enough having professionals spit in your food.
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And it's also shit pizza. Any local restaurant can do better.
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It would have to be significantly cheaper...
What a coincidence. Exactly the customer base of people who would choose Domino's to begin with over another pizzeria.
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Not in the UK. Dominos pizzas are about the most expensive of the take away and delivery pizza companies. Their pizzas are stupid prices.
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Not in the UK. Dominos pizzas are about the most expensive of the take away and delivery pizza companies. Their pizzas are stupid prices.
yes but only if you exclude the few places that make actual decent pizza, as opposed to the grease-soaked takeaway rubbish "pizza" you get at Domino, their imitators, or your typical ethnically-diverse takeaway that covers all the bases by offering kebaba and fried chicken as well as fish&chips, pizza, and curries.
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The real pizza places around me don't deliver at all. And they still aren't as expensive as Dominos.
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Right now, the pizza comes to my door. I don't need to put shoes on or a coat. This customer experience is worse. Why would I choose it when there are other pizza deliveries that will still deliver to the door. It would have to be significantly cheaper...
Here in Norway the pizza shops take ~75 NOK for delivery and ~250 NOK for a big pizza, tipping is not common. At work I get reimbursed 4.10 NOK/km for using my own car which is expected to roughly cover the running cost of the car with gas and wear/tear and the pizza shops usually deliver within 4 km. So at most it's ~33 NOK round trip to deliver a single pizza, my guess the average doing rounds is more like 10-15 NOK. The rest is probably mostly paying the driver for his work shift. I guess the autonomy an
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Of course, coming up with a level 5 autonomous car is going to take some time...
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Pizzas take about 10 minutes to cook in a commercial pizza oven. There's not a lot of time savings to be had there.
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Pretty sure this is just a warming oven, therefore under 200F. Quoted from a vendor that makes equipment:
"To do this, companies such as FWE / Food Warming Equipment have figured out the ideal temperature and humidity settings specifically for pizza. FWE has found that maintaining and holding pizza at 150F – 160F with a relative humidity* of 15% – 20% will keep the pizza at an optimal serving quality."
At 160F you aren't going to get an immediate contact burn. Eons ago I worked as a dishwasher for
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when I was in the navy and stationed in dorms on base, the drivers were only allowed to come as close as the parking lot. This was even before you could get a text that the driver was waiting, so sometimes they waited a good 10min. I believe college dorms have similar issues. They can't just stroll into a dorm anymore, not after all the reaction to a girl getting raped about 20yrs ago.
Re:This is not progress. (Score:5, Funny)
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the tip is not for the company, its for the driver specifically. They companies started throwing extra delivery charges more than 15yrs ago. Before then there was no price difference between ordering for delivery or picking it up at the store, aside from a $1 or $2 tip to the driver.
Anyone tipping 20% is retarded. You tip a waitress or waiter 15-20% because he brings your drinks, brings your food, refills your drinks, makes sure if the food has an issue he/she gets it fixed, cleans
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Anyone tipping 20% is retarded.
As a former pizza delivery driver, we remember who tips and who doesn't. That does matter as we often take the orders, also help make the pizzas, in many cases route them, and decide in what order they get delivered in once out the door.
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Well, fuel is not free...
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the final version will likely be a very lightweight, all electric, and some sort of plug-in or hot-swap for power source. It will not have have to meet any of the NHTSA regulations beyond lights and signals since there are no passengers to keep alive. This cuts weight considerably. Essentially its an all electric go-cart with an onboard computer, warming oven, and access code vending module, all wrapped in a skin. This could be done under 500lb. Therefore its plausable that the delivery charge could go from
The best part? (Score:2)
I'm never, ever tipping a robot for service.
So that's $3-5 cheaper already.
Re:The best part? (Score:5, Funny)
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They'll probably increase their delivery fee to compensate.
NEVER (Score:3)
If they send a robot, we will lose the opportunity to look at the driver name in the tracking app and get in stalker mode if it sounds even vaguely like a girl name.
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for an additional fee they will send a sex robot.
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You could probably request delivery by The Crushinator [theinfosphere.org]
The Deliverator is going to be out of a job (Score:5, Funny)
"The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills."
So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involvedâ"but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: the Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. " â" Neal Stephenson
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Next time fix the quotes and drop the attribution. Make them work for the reward.
If it's cheaper people will go for it (Score:2)
Walmart has shown that many people will put up with a crap product if it seems to save them a few bucks.
I'd just as soon pay a few bucks more and let the kid keep his delivery job.
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I'd just as soon pay a few bucks more and let the kid keep his delivery job.
You can create even more jobs if you pay him to smash windows [wikipedia.org].
Nobody benefits from pointless busywork, so why not just spend the "few bucks" on something you actually want, so someone can be employed to create it?
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"Nobody benefits from pointless busywork"
What is to one isn't to another and what isn't to another is to one too.
Re: If it's cheaper people will go for it (Score:1)
Think of the poor ... (Score:2)
They're gonna hafta come up with new plots!!!
The sky was the perfect untroubled blue (Score:2)
If Niel Gaiman can adapt so can they.
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They're gonna hafta come up with new plots!!!
If the majority of porn being made today is any indication, they can just switch it up to a woman going out to get her pizza and being choked and raped on the hood of the delivery vehicle.
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I thought they did away with plots? waay waay back in the 80s the type of porn out there was a spoof on a real movie. It was full length, had a story line, bad acting, multiple sex scenes. Fast forward a few decades and the scenes practically start out undressed and end just as soon as the facial is over.
franchises stores don't have funds for owned cars (Score:2)
franchises stores don't have funds for owned cars no they under pay drivers to use there own. Lot's of them don't have commercial car insurance. As some personal car insurance does not cover pizza / food.
instructed not to interact with people at all. (Score:2)
Good way to get in local lock up and makes it sound like there are safety issues and they don't want any one to say something about them.
Multi drop runs?? will they have more then holding (Score:2)
Multi drop runs?? will they have more then holding area?
Fake orders and robbery setups (Score:2)
Fake orders and robbery setups will this system fall victim to them.
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Fake orders and robbery setups will this system fall victim to them.
Even now, many pizza shops require caller ID to place an order by phone, or pre-payment with a credit card.
The delivery vehicle will have a camera, and require presentation of a texted QR code to dispense the pizza.
I have a hard time seeing how either fake orders or robberies could be a problem. At least the robberies will be much LESS of a problem than with human drivers, since there will be no wallet to steal.
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since there will be no wallet to steal. But they will have an car that will be coded to not hit people. Just jam the cell and it can't send out any data.
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The delivery vehicle will have a camera, and require presentation of a texted QR code to dispense the pizza.
You should at least RTFA before spouting on about it. QR codes would be nice and simple but people have to enter the last four digits of the phone number used to place the order into a keypad when picking up the pizza. So backwards.
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QR codes would be nice and simple but people have to enter the last four digits of the phone number used to place the order into a keypad when picking up the pizza. So backwards.
If your phone dies between the time you make the order and the time the delivery occurs, you still want to be able to get your pizza off the truck.
Pizza delivery and no drivers??? (Score:2)
Sounds racist to me.
right... (Score:2)
The amount of uninformed ignorance of how hard a problem this is (not the pizza part) is astounding. It's almost a joke that they think to attach the triviality of the pizza to the problem.
Domino's working on self driving car (Score:5, Funny)
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Food preparation robots are kind of hard... Maybe harder than a self-driving car.
Food tends to be soft, made of many irregularly shaped small parts that even humans find a challenge to handle, and requires some fairly good computer vision. Lidar won't help you evenly cover a pizza base.
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Food preparation robots are kind of hard... Maybe harder than a self-driving car.
Pizza-making machines are a well-solved problem, which is why there are so many frozen pizza offerings at your local supermarket.
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They call them "pizza", but they aren't really... You are right, I should have specified that robots can't make real human-style pizza.
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You are right, I should have specified that robots can't make real human-style pizza.
Right, and this would affect Domino's "pizza" how?
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Fair point. For some reason I had images of proper pizza restaurants.
Not watching adverts sometimes insulates you from what is mostly considered common knowledge.
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Guess they finally threw in the towel on making a good pizza.
Real question for the Americans: What are Dominos pizzas like in taste and price compared to other normal Pizzas? In Australia they were great. Loads of toppings, huge variety, it was actually really difficult to beat them on taste and almost impossible to beat them in bang for buck.
Even now you go to a lovely Italian place where they make their own dough and have their own wood fired pizza stove, and the littering of ingredients is so sparse and the flavours so basic that I find it hard to justify it.
One p
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Real question for the Americans: What are Dominos pizzas like in taste and price compared to other normal Pizzas?
In my part of the US, they are absolutely terrible. Greasy, bland, poor quality ingredients.
However, they used to be a lot worse! I would say they're no longer the worst pizza you can buy from a chain, but now rank as maybe the third worst.
The Dominos customer base is primarily college students who haven't learned that they can do much better for only a little more money.
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I'm not surprised. I've stopped judging companies by what is said about them in other countries. As said I had an awesome Pizzahut pizza in China. Truly a delight on the tongue. Yet in Australia I instead got a tasteless ingredient sparse disc with a side of spending the entire following day on the toilet.
I can't stand anything from KFC in the Netherlands. Yet their chips have the most amazing seasoning in Australia. McDonalds is bland and boring in Australia, yet they had all sorts of exotic burgers with i
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Yes, I was surprised to hear that there are Pizza Huts that make great pizzas. Again, in my part of the US (these things can and do differ in different parts of the country), I would say that the worst pizza you can buy is Little Caesars, followed by Pizza Hut, then Domino's.
Several years ago, the same three populated the list, but Domino's ranked at #1 in it. It was so bad that Domino's made a major effort to change their ways and engaged in a media blitz where they literally were saying "our pizzas don't
inexpensive (Score:2)
One can't help imagining... (Score:2)
...convoys of armed thugs in stolen vehicles trailing along behind these things, secure in the knowledge that people will be coming out of their houses late at night to pick up a pizza at the curb.
"Landshark Home Raiders" is a catchy name. Or maybe, "Su Casa Es Mi Casa, Inc."
Domino's? Better make at home or go to a restauran (Score:2)
I suppose that making a full automated pizza machine is possible and easier than a self driving veichle.
Or going actually to an Italian restaurant to eat pizzas, oer even ask a these restaurans to delive could and is a better option.
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I suppose that making a full automated pizza machine is possible and easier than a self driving veichle.
Obviously it is, because there's a variety of frozen pizza options at your local supermarket which prove it. But on the other hand, that equipment may be too expensive for a pizzeria to purchase and maintain. Self-driving cars are coming to everyone, sooner or later.
Domino'b (Score:1)
Personally I wouldn't eat one if they delivered it with seven virgins on a full moon night.
But for people who like it, cool.
to expenive (Score:2)
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the issue is cost much like there fleet delivery cars that have ovens very few will actually ever be ordered by franchise owners.
Those cars only have warming ovens, which interestingly reuse at least one rear seat heating element (I'd guess they actually use all of them but I haven't looked into it far enough to find out.) This meant only having to do a bit of rearrangement work to complete the electrical system. They also stopped making them after a very short run. What percentage of them do you think have been delivered to franchises?
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The car cost is unknown because we do not know exactly what the final vehicle will look like. If its driverless it will essentially be a warming oven with 4 wheels, a motor, a battery, gps, and driving software. Probably something smaller and lighter than a SMART car (no NHTSA requirements) but yet big enough people cant pick it up and run off with it to scrap for parts. What if it only costs $3k? Domino's was the first major chain to roll out delivery and for a while they purchased a fleet of chevy s-10's
The fatal flaw in this plan (Score:2)
The fatal flaw with this plan is that customers end up with Domino's pizza instead of one that is actually good.
Dear Dominos (Score:2)
If I order from you, and send it by self-driving vehicle with no human, I will not accept it.
Of course, this just demonstrates how STOOOPID you are. If Dominos, and similar businesses do this, then what jobs are folks going to have to make money to order?
Henry Ford, Sr., decided to pay the employees on the assembly line enough so that they could buy what they built in a couple of years. You like that idea... but assume other companies will pick up for what you REFUSE to do.
Screw you. I do not suffer fools g
What's next? (Score:2)
So I have to come out to the car that's parked somewhere nearby to pick up my pizza? What's next? Do I have to come down to the shop where they make it and pick it up there?
There is something wrong with a society that is focused on ways to eliminate people from being part of it. I don't know how to solve that issue...
Re:Let's do some physics (Score:4, Insightful)
Nowhere in the description does it say it will deliver pizzas one at a time; I would assume it would do multiple deliveries per run for efficiency's sake.
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Since it has an oven, it seems like the next step should be to load it with with frozen pizzas in the morning and have it cook them on route all day.
Re:Let's do some physics (Score:5, Insightful)
Since it has an oven, it seems like the next step should be to load it with with frozen pizzas in the morning and have it cook them on route all day.
For even more savings, have the buyer bake their own pizza too.
Seriously, the reason people order pizza is so they won't have to go get it. I'm not going to exchange my robe and slippers for full clothing and walk to the end of the driveway, especially not in bad weather. I'd rather tip someone who does it voluntarily.
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who does it voluntarily.
I know some people love their jobs, and it's their dream career. But no one is a pizza delivery driver voluntarily.
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Considering I made more than double minimum wage in college delivering pizza, I had no complaints about being a delivery guy.
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Are you still a pizza delivery guy? Did you do it for love or did you do it because you needed money?
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That's a pretty stupid argument. Only a very small percent of people do their job because they love it. How many lottery winners go back to work? I know that while I like my job, if I was independently wealthy I'd be gone in a heartbeat.
Given the tips and the hours, there are lots of reasons to love a pizza delivery job if you're a teen who can't work a regular 9-5 shift. Where else can you make double minimum wage after dinner while smoking a lot of weed?
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Only a very small percent of people do their job because they love it.
So? That doesn't change the argument at all. Only a very small percent of people go to work voluntarily which was my original point. The pizza guy isn't "voluntarily" dredging through the rain and snow. He's doing it because if he didn't he'd not get paid and THAT is the only reason he's currently in your driveway.
Just because you love a job, doesn't mean you do it voluntarily. You just admitted that yourself.
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... why wouldn't you just wear the robe and slippers out to the driveway?
Snow, rain and fisher cats.
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Sure, can you please add extra toppings to the right side of the pizza.
Why would that be a problem?
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but there has to be an 80/20 rule that's applicable here.
1. Frozen pie goes into oven
2, Pepperoni, or one or more of 4 toppings, gets added to the pie.
-- Pie spins and toppings (pepperoni, mushroom) get dropped. OR
-- Toppings are dropped on one half of the pie
Obviously not ALL permutations are possible but I'm sure a large portion of the most common ones could be.
I'm a pizza snob so I wouldn't partake in this. But, if someone is already a
Mothership EV could launch drones (Score:5, Interesting)
Combine the two types of autonomous vehicle for the best of both worlds. An autonomous EV van could be loaded with pizzas and able to launch short-hop delivery drones. It could keep one or more drones out delivering to the door while the rest are being recharged on the EV as their mothership.
This overcomes several issues, notably the lack of delivery to the door in Domino's (test) solution. It also ensures that pizza stays hot without needing a heavily insulated box since the trip by air would be much shorter. What's more, it allows the flying drones to be replaced with short-range wheeled delivery bots as an alternative, perhaps chosen on a house by house basis, which may be cheaper and more reliable, or even necessary in the rain.
Recharging on the mothership overcomes both efficiency and range issues, and allows smaller/cheaper batteries to be used in end-delivery vehicles. This in turn could lead towards the short-hop drones/bots becoming cheap, mass-produced, disposable delivery elements.
Pounds means Economics (Score:2)
A 2500 pound vehicle to carry one 1-pound pizza. That's efficient.
The only time physicists use pounds is as a currency unit which would make this an economics question and a vehicle costing 2,500 pounds sounds pretty efficient to me. However, I'm not sure I would want to eat a pizza which cost one pound. Sometimes you can be too efficient.
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It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
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are you calling the engineer fat? LOL.
one reason to keep a heavier autonomous vehicle of moderate size is theft. If they used a drone not much bigger than your order, and it sat around waiting for a code to be input to ensure the right person retrieved the order, whats to stop someone from stealing that drone? The drone would be worth more than the pie, even if it were just sold for parts. Theres been a huge uptick in theft lately, to such a degree that even with positive ID of car theft, they are not prose
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People are going to abuse the hell out of this.
Domino's will have your phone number, your credit card number, and a video recording of your misbehavior.
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People are going to abuse the hell out of this. They'll put excrement, used condoms, dead rodents, vomit, or god knows what else for the next customer to deal with.
Alright. Now I need to go see if Netflix has Drawn Together. The above brought Spanky Ham's "sausage" pizza prank to mind.
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I would mod you up if I hadn't already posted... and if I had points.
But I did not get that result this time around. Nope, it was "Drawn Together is available on DVD only."
Fortunately, watchartoononline has it.
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I really dont give a shit. Im really not pro choice, Im definitely not anti-abortion. Im a libertarian and dont really give a shit what someone does or doesnt do to themselves. All I really ask is that I don't have to pay for someone else's mistake. If someone needs a suction DNC for heath reasons/complications, or because they got raped, sure. I don't even mind paying for Plan-B or that shot that works the first 12 weeks because its relatively inexpensive. Outpatient surgery with anesthesia and a medical s
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stealing the car would be more difficult due to size/weight. the drone would be easier. You could conceivably get the delivery vehicle down to 500lb ( not much more than those motorized wheelchairs) and make them just big enough to be difficult to put into a vehicle/truck/etc. A drone big enough to avoid the same thing probably becomes a safety issue with the rotating propeller.