Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ) and California-based robotics company Nuro announced April 12 they kicked off their previously announced autonomous delivery pilot program in a Greater Heights subdivision.
Select customers who place a prepaid order online on certain days and times from the Domino's location at 3209 Houston Ave. in Woodland Heights will be given the option to use Nuro's autonomous delivery. They'll then be able to track the unmanned vehicle — known as the R2 — via the Domino's app and will receive a unique PIN to unlock the compartment containing their pizza.
"We're excited to continue innovating the delivery experience for Domino's customers by testing autonomous delivery with Nuro in Houston," said Dennis Maloney, Domino's senior vice president and chief innovation officer. "There is still so much for our brand to learn about the autonomous delivery space. This program will allow us to better understand how customers respond to the deliveries, how they interact with the robot and how it affects store operations. The growing demand for great-tasting pizza creates the need for more deliveries, and we look forward to seeing how autonomous delivery can work along with Domino's existing delivery experts to better support the customers' needs."
The launch is a glimpse of what’s to come, Nuro co-founder and President Dave Ferguson wrote in an April 12 blog post.
"An autonomous pizza delivery to a customer in Houston will translate to deliveries of all kinds to people in all places," Ferguson wrote. "We want to build an equitable and accessible future with the promise of lower emissions, safer streets, and more communities that participate in the economic growth of autonomous delivery."
The partnership between the and robotics company and the Michigan-based pizza chain was first announced in June 2019. From the start, Houston was slated to be the first city where the new partnership would launch. At the time, the companies did not specify the exact areas where the service would be available or a specific launch date.
"Since announcing the partnership, we've made significant progress," Nuro told the Houston Business Journal in an email. "Nuro and Domino's thoughtfully selected the first participating store at the end of 2019 and have completed hundreds of autonomous tests since. After jointly assessing and ensuring the service's readiness, we have transitioned from testing to launching with our fully autonomous delivery vehicle, R2."
Nuro and Domino's will consider expanding the autonomous delivery to additional locations, but the companies are not sharing specific details at this time, Nuro said.
Nuro has launched various autonomous services in the Bayou City in the past few years. In June 2020, CVS Pharmacy and Nuro kicked off their autonomous delivery pilot program in the Bellaire area. In December 2019, Nuro announced a partnership with Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) to send groceries to customers’ homes.
But Nuro's autonomous services for Houston began in April 2019 when the company partnered with the Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) to officially launched their driverless grocery delivery service within Houston. That service — like many Nuro has announced — began with Nuro's Prius self-driving fleet in select ZIP codes before introducing Nuro's next generation of custom driverless vehicles.
