Self-Driving Pizza Delivery

The Ford Fusion prototype; image by Sam Abuelsamid

          

            In the late 1800’s, society started to move away from the horse and buggy and the railcar, and cars started to emerge. Cars were an essential part of this time period and have evolved over the last 200 years in our society thanks to the invention of the engine. In our world today of advanced technology, self-automated cars were bound to arise in the near future.

In America today, citizens are feeling the pressure of having less time to cook at home and do the daily essentials. Wanting a faster, cheaper, and more efficient way to get food has been on the rise. Pizza delivery is no stranger to anyone but receiving a pizza box in a car with no driver? That’s a different story.

An experiment has emerged in which Domino’s and Ford has teamed up to launch a pizza delivery to take place in a self-driving car. Selected customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan will be a part of this experiment. Domino’s for many years has promised that your order will be delivered in 30 minutes or less or else it’s free. Domino’s drivers today do their best to deliver your fresh hot pizza in under that time limit. This new invention of the self-driving Ford Fusion will put pizza delivery to the test, in which it will try to deliver your pizza in under 30 minutes and get to you safely. On the outside of the car will be a tablet that will allow customers to pay for their pizza as well (Abuelsamid 2017).

A recent update from Ford officials explained that the self-driving car will be put to hold for the time being and instead, someone will operate the vehicle manually. They want to focus on how the vehicle operates and interacts with customers and focus on the automated control system later. So the experiment that will officially take place will be a manually operated vehicle with tinted windows and a fully automated system to give the customer a real life experience of a self-driving car.

Over the next month, Domino’s and Ford will test a variety of scenarios for the car. Two types of tests they will conduct include the car delivering to different types of homes as well as delivering in different types of weather. The self-driving cars have already been tested and approved, Ford just wants to test the car manually first to receive feedback on customer satisfaction.

Now, self-driving cars might be worrisome to some people. Trying to trust a car to get from point A to point B could be nerve-wracking, especially if it is on a timed schedule (30 minutes or less according to Domino’s). Self-driving cars will also cause job loss and could hurt families or individuals who rely on pizza delivery for their income. Wondering how the car would know when to change lanes, trust the GPS system, and most importantly not crash and cause an accident, are three main issues we might have as well. Citizen’s, like me, might accumulate fear when on the road and see a car labeled “self-driving,” and I’m not quite sure how ready our society is to encounter this new tie between self-driving cars and pizza delivery.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2017/08/29/dominos-takes-high-tech-pizza-delivery-to-level-4-with-ford/#5611435c299e