Domino's New Driverless Pizza Delivery (sort of) Trucks

Cafe Society
1

Not on the streets yet, just under consideration, but I just filled out a survey for Domino’s about what I thought of their great new idea. Driverless Pizza Delivery Trucks.

According to the description, these trucks will be loaded with ‘the most popular’ of their two-topping medium sized pizzas held in warming ovens. When you get a pizza craving, you use their phone app to find out where the closest truck is, select from the pizzas it’s stocked with, and pay. Then they give you a code, you go find the truck, input your code, and zingo (I guess?) you get your “Piping hot hand made pizza” (so it said.)

Riiiiight.

This is supposed to be faster and more convenient for the consumer of course.

Riiiight.

So, this is what I do now when I want pizza: I call the nearest store, tell the nice person on the other end exactly what I want (any sizes, any combo of topings, even split pizzas!, plus any add on drinks or sides or whatever.) Then I get in my car, drive to the store, pay for the order, and drive it home.

So what I’d do with this fantastic new innovation: I use the phone app to order two (it sounds like you have to order at least two, maybe not, wasn’t completely clear) of the limited variety of medium pizzas available and pay by whatever. They give me a code and the location of the truck. I get in my car, drive to the truck, get out of my car to input some code and collect the pizzas, and drive home.

How the hell has this spared me any inconvenience at all??? I still have to make a call/use an app, still have to get in my car and drive to wherever to get them.

On the downside: not much choice in pizzas, and who knows how long your ‘piping hot pizza’ has been sitting quietly drying out in that warming oven? Since it was loaded up, how many hours ago??

And what makes this ‘delivery’ in any meaningful sense? If I still have to get fully dressed, including cold weather gear if necessary, go out to my car, drive somewhere, get out of the car again, drive home, go back in my house…that’s NOT DELIVERY.

Not no how, not no way.

At the very best, it’s a super-limited small pizza shop that might happen to be closer to your house than the store is, sometimes.
What was extra fun: after the main part of the survey, it gave you a chance to enter your main reaction to the idea in your own words. And then it let you scroll through as many as you want of what other surveyees said, and vote them up or down.

Out of fascination I must have read over a hundred of the remarks. Tons of people who hated the whole idea of driverless cars as dangerous. Tons of people protesting that they’re just taking jobs away from delivery people. Tons of complaints over the restricted size and flavors. Complaints, complaints, complaints.

One guy fantasized about getting caught in traffic on his way to the truck’s location, only to get there as the truck gave up on him and pulled away. And then he’d be pursuing the truck endlessly up and down streets in pursuit of his fleeing pizzas. (Wish I could have given him more than one thumbs up.)

In fact, out of the 100 or so I read, there were just a couple of “cool new idea” type comments. And four who were way in favor of the idea because “No having to talk to people in the store! Great!”
I cannot believe Domino’s seriously thinks this is a good idea, but they claimed they had contracts with some company to build the trucks. (They named the company, but I forget. Something like Dace, maybe?)

2

No, I think what the vehicle does is actually drive itself out to your house. You enter the code in your app when the vehicle arrives, go outside, and get your order. It wouldn’t make sense for you to have to drive to where the vehicle is. It’s like Uber with pizza.

3

All I can say is that is definitely not the impression the poll questions left me with, and going by the approx. one hundred other replies I read, that’s what other people thought, too.

Though even if it drove up to the street outside my house… eh. It would still be mass produced pizza of an limited choice of varieties. I’ll stick with dealing with real people.

4

According to this article, you order from the store and vehicle drives to your house. The code is to unlock the compartment with your pizza- because presumably, just like a vehicle with a driver, there is more than one pizza to be delivered loaded into the truck.

5

And real pizza.

6

Now I’m sure the survey is about taking it a step further than what they already (almost) have going. Because if you’re calling the store and able to order anything you want, well, that’s 180 degrees from what all the text they had about only medium size pizzas and the trucks being ‘stocked with’ the most popular two toppings pizzas. (I wish I’d screen-capped the text.)

In fact that was one of their selling points, on how fast it would be because there was no wait time while your pizza was built and cooked. It sort of came across like their target audience was stoners desperate for FOOD NOW who weren’t going to be particular over exactly what was on them.

7

I have no idea what the actual idea of the service is but, to answer the question that was asked, it would be more convenient because it multiplies the number of locations that they have so the pickup location could be a lot closer.

If your interpretation of the service is correct, this would probably be less useful useful for a home but it could be decent for workplaces. In a downtown environment, there might be enough demand to support enough trucks to have them just a few blocks away, no matter where you are.

8

Or maybe it’s to replace delivery to parks and beaches, etc. I recall maybe a year ago, there was talk of deliveries via GPS rather than addresses, but it was going to be at predetermined spots- they wouldn’t find you and your umbrella on the sand or find you on a park bench , but you would meet the delivery person at a particular spot- maybe an intersection on the boardwalk or a particular park entrance. At a sufficiently busy location, premade pizzas might work - after all Little Caesar’s has essentially the same thing with "hot and ready pizzas- it’s a limited selection, but you don’t need to order a pizza and wait for it to be made. Only difference is that you pick up “hot and ready” at a store

9

Sure, but I’m guessing that Dominos knows what the most requested varieties are. So maybe it’s not a solution for you but it could be to someone who wants a sausage & mushroom.

10

Before they do shit like this, they might try making a pizza that’s actually edible.

11

It gets worse. What if the pizza truck runs over some dude while you’re trying to dispose of your ex-boyfriend’s body?

12

Word. But then, they were always more of sellers of sizzle, rather than steak, so to speak. Ditto for Papa Johns.

13

Soon wild pizza wielding trucks will be roaming the streets.

14

Any chance you have a link to the survey?

15

Assuming that it’s as you described, the advantage is that it’d be quicker, because there’s both less time to prepare the pizza, and less driving time.

As to whether that advantage outweighs the disadvantages, I agree with you, no, it does not. Delivery pizza is already quick enough, and it’s not that hard to just place your order a half-hour before you want to eat it.

16

It would make more sense in a city rather than suburban/rural. Roll out enough so it’s just a short walk, and you don’t have to pay delivery fee or tip. It’s less of a robot pizza delivery and more of a robot food truck.

17

I thought I saw there were already some of these on college campuses, where it would make perfect sense.

18

In the future, we’ll be able to just download a pizza directly from the internet.

19

Sorry, no. I somehow got on a list almost a decade ago, and ever since I must get one or two survey offers a week on all sorts of products/services/opinion polls/whatever. The links are one time use – even if you don’t finish a survey because you’re interrupted or something, you can’t go back to it. Reclicking the link just gives you a blank screen with “you’ve already taken this survey.”

One thing I find mildly fun: at least a half dozen times a year lately the surveys have clearly been for the Family Feud game show. You know when they say “We asked 100 people what their favorite XXXX is?” That’s me. One in a hundred. :smiley:

20

Why would I like that better than a delivery driver bringing it to the door?