Pizzas To Be Delivered By Self-Driving Cars
Your Pizza Hut delivery could one day arrive via a self-driving Toyota van.
Toyota unveiled a concept vehicle called e-Palette, which could host a mobile store, act as a ride-sharing service or deliver packages. The announcement was unveiled at International CES in Las Vegas on Monday.
The automaker said it is teaming up with a handful of partners, including Pizza Hut, Amazon, Chinese ridesharing giant Didi and Uber.
Although the concept of a driverless Pizza Hut truck may seem farfetched, automaker Ford recently announced a similar initiative with Domino's Pizza with a specially-equipped Ford Fusion. The companies preliminary testing for the process at Mcity, a simulated city environment on the campus of the University of Michigan.
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A bold move: Pizza Hut. A bold move indeed. I always thought the best bet for self-driving cars was to just fly under the radar until it’s too late to stop them. Best to have all the fuck ups happen when nobody cares, and then take over the world when you’ve worked all of the kinks out. Of course, if you go this pizza delivery route (see what I did there?) you have a chance at winning over the hearts and minds of the nation. However, with this great reward also comes great risk.
You’ve never met a more spiteful person than someone whose pizza delivery is delayed, and that's speaking from experience. I turn from a more-or-less nice guy to a madman, murder suddenly becomes a distinct possibility, and while I think my name is Dr. Jekyll I look in the mirror and see Mr. Hyde. The guilt-ridden ecstasy of ordering pizza turns quickly to rage when things don’t go according to plan, that's true with everyone; and there would be no quicker way to alienate the common people than to fuck up their pizza nights. This is a high publicity move, and hey, go big or go home I guess.
I personally will continue to order my pies from people companies with people deliverymen who I can silently send spiteful vibes while festering like an infected wound on my couch. That being said, hey, if you can get my pizza to me on time by robotic car, you may just make a believer out of me. That's not to say that I will suddenly disbelieve that robots will kill us all, and that creating robotic, self-driving cars is playing right into their hand; it's just that I'll be more okay with it.
