Pizza giant may soon deliver pizzas via self-driving cars — no tips required

Domino's Pizza may be adding a new item to its take-out menu — driverless deliveries.



The pizza giant is teaming up with Ford Motor Co. to test how well self-driving vehicles can make pizza deliveries. The partners will evaluate how customers react to interacting with a self-driving vehicle within their delivery experience — data that is paramount to understanding how customers perceive the future of food delivery with self-driving vehicles.



Over the next several weeks, randomly-selected Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will have the opportunity to receive their delivery order from a Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle. The cars will be manually-driven by a Ford safety engineer and staffed with researchers. However, blacked-out windows keep customers from interacting with the driver.



Customers who agree to participate will be able to track the delivery vehicle through GPS using an upgraded version of Domino's Tracker app. They will also receive text messages as the self-driving vehicle approaches. These messages will guide them on how to retrieve their pizza using a unique code to unlock the Domino's Heatwave Compartment inside the vehicle.



"We're interested to learn what people think about this type of delivery," said Russell Weiner, president of Domino's USA.



The company is mainly focused on how the vehicles will impact “the last 50 feet of the delivery experience,” including how customers will react to coming outside to get their food.



“We need to make sure the interface is clear and simple. We need to understand if a customer's experience is different if the car is parked in the driveway versus next to the curb,” Weiner said. “All of our testing research is focused on our goal to someday make deliveries with self-driving vehicles as seamless and customer-friendly as possible.”



Ford and Domino's completed preliminary testing of the delivery process using the vehicle in self-driving mode at Mcity, the simulated urban environment on the University of Michigan's campus, Dominos said.



The test joins Domino’s growing portfolio of innovations — many focused on improving deliveries. In May for example, the company launched a platform that lets customers sync their smart home devices with the ETA of their pizza deliveries.



Domino’s has also tested drone deliveries, voice-enabled ordering and launched a wedding registry.