Self-Driving vs. Drone Delivery: Which One Will Serve A Fresher Pizza?

Pizza delivery has just gotten interesting — Dominos has partnered with Ford to test autonomous pizza delivery. The company has been teasing robotic pizza deliveries since 2015 and has even tested commercial drones for delivery, but it seems self-driving might be the one that becomes feasible first.

Dominos and Ford are not creating a fleet of self-driving vehicles for pizza delivery just yet, but are actually testing how customers react to the delivery method. For the effort, the company will use a modified Ford Fusion hybrid in the Ann Arbor region of Michigan. Customers will be informed in advance that a self-driven vehicle is being used to deliver their pizza. The car won’t just drive by itself — it will actually have researchers who will observe the process, along with a Ford engineer.

Customers will also be able to track the car in the app using an upgraded Dominos tracker. The car will also have a Dominos Heatwave Compartment which will keep the pizza warm until the customer opens the compartment and takes it out. The people in the car won’t be intervening in the delivery and the delivery will take place assuming they aren’t even there, in order to test the full potential of self-driving pizza deliveries.

Customers will have to face a slight inconvenience though — rather than getting a pizza delivered at their door, they will have to venture out to take the pizza from the car.

While self-driven pizza delivery, sounds unique at the very least, the company has been testing another technology for quite some time now — drone-based deliveries. The company’s U.K. division tested out drone-based pizza deliveries with its ‘Domicopter’ in 2013, but the experiment was marred by the Federal Aviation Authority’s ban on commercial drone usage at the time. The ban has since been lifted and chances are that Dominos could re-engage drone-based pizza delivery too.

Drone deliveries will have the advantage of doorstep pizza deliveries and more importantly, face expectedly less traffic in the air than a self-driven car would face on the road. It would also be a less expensive solution in comparison to self-driven cars, since a medium sized drone — one that can carry a pizza comes for cheaper than an average self-driven car, due to the need for fewer onboard sensors.

When it comes to food delivery-based services, timeliness is the key and drones might have a better chance of succeeding than a self-driving car in that aspect. Also, drones will be more energy-efficient since they are powered by smaller batteries than self-driven cars and can be charged more easily. But, commercial drone-based delivery is yet to take off, while self-driving is at the precipice of going mainstream. While many companies have not just invested in self-driving — they are actively testing it and pursuing lawmakers to pass legislation supporting the technology — drone-based deliveries are currently limited to patents and the one off testing, even by retail giants such as Amazon and Walmart.

Overall, Dominos has a better chance of succeeding with self-driving, as opposed to drone-based deliveries. Whether and when the company plans to go from testing to actual deliveries is not yet known.