Rummaging through purses and pockets to find a tip for your food delivery person may soon be a thing of the past as two big names in pizza have partnered with major automakers developing self-driving vehicles. Pizza Hut recently announced it is working with Toyota to create electric self-driving delivery trucks called e-Palettes it will soon begin testing.
CNN reports about the self-driving trucks that may soon be delivering all sorts of things to your doorstep. Toyota’s ePalette has partnered with Amazon, Pizza Hut and ridesharing companies like Uber that are now exploring the future of deliveries. Toyota president Akio Toyoda recently said of ePalette, “Today, you have to travel to the stores. In the future with e-Pallete, the store will come to you.”
Testing of the self-driving truck will begin in 2020 at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and then testing is expected to spread in the U.S. and other areas in the early 2020’s. Pizza Hut has already begun promoting the idea of ePallete when it posted a picture of the concept vehicle on Twitter writing, “Introducing the first Pizza Hut fully autonomous delivery concept vehicle.”
Domino’s has also gone forward with plans for a self-driving pizza delivery program when it partnered with Ford Fusion.They are currently doing preliminary testing of these vehicles at Mcity, a simulated city on the University of Michigan. The future is now it seems, and thankfully for many of us it includes pizza.
What do you think of self-driving delivery vehicles?
Do you think this type of vehicle will be the way of the future for companies like Pizza Hut, Domino's and Amazon?