Leading takeaway pizza chain Domino‘s is going to start sending food to customers using dedicated self-driving vehicles from Silicon Valley startup Nuro.

The initial rollout starts in Houston, Texas later this year. 

Kevin Vasconi, executive vice president and chief information officer for Domino’s, said: “Nuro’s vehicles are specially designed to optimise the food delivery experience, which makes them a valuable partner in our autonomous vehicle journey.” 

“The opportunity to bring our customers the choice of an unmanned delivery experience, and our operators an additional delivery solution during a busy store rush, is an important part of our autonomous vehicle testing.

“Through all our prior rounds of testing we have learned that many customers are receptive to the idea of a self-driving vehicle delivering their pizza,” he said. 

“Some customers even said they would prefer a self-driving vehicle to a delivery with a driver — we know it’s not for everybody, but there are customers who are interested in this type of delivery.”

At present, while Nuro’s six existing autonomous vehicles are operating for a small grocery chain in the Houston area, human-driven ‘chase cars’ are used to monitor their performance and step in if anything untoward happens.

Nuro CEO Dave Ferguson told tech website Ars Technica that the company is hoping to stop using the chase cars by the middle of 2019.

Nuro will need to scale up rapidly if they’re to service the massive demand for Domino’s products. Domino’s did an earlier trial of Ford’s self-driven delivery vehicles in Michigan back in 2017. 

When can we expect these little robotic pizza delivery cars in the UK? Rhiannon Berriman, a spokesperson for Domino’s UK told Daily Star online:“We’re all about extraordinary delivery, having used golf buggies, penny farthings and even our very own DomiCopter to delight our pizza fans with freshly made piping hot food.

“We’ll be scrutinising how our friends in the US get on – watch this space!”

Meanwhile, another quirky Domino’s delivery took place – or nearly took place – at the weekend after a prankster ordered £46-worth of pizza for a customer called ‘Elizabeth’ at Buckingham Palace.

The driver was sent on his way by two armed police officers.

Zsuzsanna Queiser, manager of Domino’s nearby Victoria branch, said: “We’ve always suspected the Queen was a secret Domino’s fan and the order to Buckingham Palace almost confirmed our suspicions.

“We didn’t quite make it past the gate, but the four large Cheeseburger pizzas seemed to go down pretty well with the police officers on duty. Next time, Your Majesty.“

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