Although we’ve already covered the pizza delivery truck that will cook your pizzas autonomously enroute, another company – Nuro – is developing a driverless vehicle specifically designed to deliver pizzas.
The startup, based in – you guessed it – Silicon Valley – has developed a range of driverless cars, about half the size of Toyota Corollas, deigned fo one purpose – to deliver hot and tasty pizzas.
Because the cars aren’t designed to transport people, the development process was much faster than conventional driverless cars, specifically the comfort inside. It didn’t need to think about the suspension for example, because pizzas aren’t bothered about going over speed bumps, neither did it have to worry too much about the experience when braking the car, because aside from the topping getting a little smushed, pizzas can’t be damaged by an emergency stop.
Although crashing isn’t really on Nuro’s R1 car’s remit, even if it does hit an obstacle, as long as it avoids humans or other drivers, it doesn’t matter a whole amount, because there isn’t anyone in the car to be injured.
R1’s top speed is 25mph, so it’s unlikely the robot will cause as much damage as a passenger vehicle running at much faster speeds, but again, speed wasn’t a huge concern of the company. Although people may want their pizza to be delivered swiftly, the pizza doesn’t care if it can only travel slowly.
The founders of Nuro have a lot of experience in the driverless car arena. They were involved in Alphabet’s Waymo, although they decided to leave and start up their own company instead when they realised the commercial potential of driverless cars.
The majority of the big tech firms like Alphabet, Ford and General Motors will be looking to develop driverless delivery vehicles in future, but there are very few businesses developing commercial vehicles as a priority.
