What felt like celluloid fantasy until a few years ago, becomes a reality this week. Domino’s Pizza, in association with Nuro Inc, a leading self-driving delivery startup, are starting a robotic pizza delivery service in Houston.
Select customers, who place a pre-paid online order on certain days and times from Domino’s in Woodland Heights, will have the option to have their pizza delivered by Nuro’s R2 robot, the first completely autonomous, occupantless, on-road delivery vehicle which has been approved by the US Department of Transportation.
In 2019, Domino’s announced a partnership with Nuro to further its exploration and testing of autonomous pizza delivery, and the first execution comes at the right time for them as they seek to satisfy increasing online orders during the pandemic. The service will be expanded to several other locations in the coming months.
R2 isn’t exactly R2D2 from Star Wars, but a small, low-speed vehicles that carries packages instead of people. Nuro, now valued at over $5 billion, secured US clearance last year to start unmanned delivery services and recently raised $500 million, including an equity investment, from Woven Capital, the mobility investment arm of a Toyota Motor subsidiary.
“We’re excited to continue innovating the delivery experience for Domino’s customers by testing autonomous delivery with Nuro in Houston,” said Dennis Maloney, senior vice president and chief innovation officer, Domino’s, which has more than17,600 stores in over 90 countries and global retail sales of more than $16.1 billion in 2020.
“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.”
Customers will receive text alerts, which will update them on R2’s location and provide them with a unique PIN to retrieve their order. Customers may also track the vehicle via GPS on their order confirmation page. Once R2 arrives, customers will be prompted to enter their PIN on the bot’s touchscreen. R2’s door will then slide upwards and the hot order can be retrieved.
Nuro, founded by two former Google engineers in 2016, has already partnered with retailers Kroger Co, Walmart Inc and CVS Health Corp to deliver groceries and prescriptions.
“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, co-founder and president, Nuro.
“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.”
