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Within Next Five Years Your Pizzas Will Probably Be Delivered by Autonomous Cars, Domino's Pizza CEO Says (thestreet.com)
In an interview with The Street, Domino's Pizza outgoing CEO Patrick Doyle said in three to five years at the earliest he expects driverless cars and voice orders to shift the way the world orders pizza. From the report: "We have been investing in natural voice for ordering for a few years. We rolled that out in our own apps before Amazon launched Alexa and Alphabet launched Google Home...[and] we are making investments...to understand how consumers will want to interact with autonomous vehicles and pizza delivery," Doyle said.
title says it all
So I have to walk out and not have it at the door? I may as well pick it up or better yet pay more for better pizza at some other place.
Part of the reason delivery works today is that shops rely on people desperate enough to try to make tip money as drivers during slow hours, essentially burning up gas, smokes and their own car shuttling food around town. If shops had to buy and maintain a couple of high-tech, breakdown-prone cars instead of letting a couple of near-deadbeats hang around the back door I can see their profit margins taking a dive.
So your logic is that if you have to walk 20 feet, you might as well walk 20 feet, get in your car, drive for 10 minutes, walk another 20 feet, wait around for them to bring the pizza out, walk another 20 feet back to your car, drive another 10 minutes, and then walk another 20 feet?
The pizza that is.
to understand how consumers will want to interact with autonomous vehicles and pizza delivery
I'm betting they want free pizzas to be delivered to thier door by a sexy robot who got there in an autonomous car. I'm also guessing the autonomous car loaded with fresh pizza at night in many neighborhoods will fare about as well as that new 5th grader who wet his pants during his introduction to home room class.
I think the logic is rather that if I ask for delivery, I want delivery. If Domino's does not provide this, I'll order from someone else who does.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When I want a pizza, I just go to a mom and pop pizzeria and have a nice meal with friend over a bottle of wine and a human waiter who talks to me.
When I want what they have, I just put some oil on a cardboard and eat that.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
A gram. Two if he's cute.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So your logic is that if you have to walk 20 feet, you might as well walk 20 feet, get in your car, drive for 10 minutes, walk another 20 feet, wait around for them to bring the pizza out, walk another 20 feet back to your car, drive another 10 minutes, and then walk another 20 feet?
It what twisted Escher world or yours is the the front do of an apartment on the 10th floor of a building no more than 20 feet away from where an automated vehicle will drop off he pizza that you ordered?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Um, wouldn't a drone be a lot easier, cheaper, safer, quicker, and every other 'er than a freaking autonomous car. :)
This guy needs to step back from tech predictions and improve his company's oily pizza!
Sorry, if I'm not making my own pizza, I'm going to order from someone who makes good pizza.
And Domino's ain't that.
Given that Domino's revenue was almost $2.5 billion in 2016, it seems like many people don't agree with you, or they do and just don't care.
You mean there will finally be a chance that the pizza is still hot when it arrives? Now THAT would be a change I could get behind!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Would you want one of those American autonomous cars instead?
Careful what you wish for, this could be your car this one has to park behind...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are some promising advances, but it seems optimistic to believe that there will be vast fleets of fully autonomous cars operating throughout the US within 5 years. Only a minority of conventional cars have anything like a self-drive mode.
Besides, Domino's is shit pizza, shittier as pizza than Taco Bell is as Mexican food.
The legions of local pizza places will still depend on stoners with aging Hondas and legions of fools with expensive cars desperate to do anything to make their car payments.
I fail to see the big change. Whether some pizza delivery guy is driving to me or the sans-delivery guy autonomous car, it does not generate an additional vehicle on the road. Without my pizza, the delivery guy's car is not on the road.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This. When I ask for delivery I mean for someone else to bring it to my door. I don't want to leave the house. In other words, I don't want to get dressed, put on shoes and walk out to the curb.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Hmm... that pizza box could work as fuselage with a lifting factor, maybe you'd need some wings and a cheap way to power it...
Well, thinking about it, the F4 was less aerodynamic, it just could work.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Domino's Pizza still sucks and I don't order it. Since they'll be putting tons of poor folks out of work, I'll probably boycott them on principle.
This is /.; don't trust the title.
The title says "Within Next Five Years Your Pizzas Will Probably", while the actual quote was "in three to five years at the earliest". That's two very different statements.
Either the editor can't read, or makes deliberately false statements in order to gain clicks.
Why not cut out the middle man and create autonomous, self-delivering pizzas? I have no idea how it would work, but whoever comes up with it would have a license to print money!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Domino's pizza is just a little better than a frozen pizza. Yes, there are better pizzaria's, one of them is right down the road. Problem is they don't deliver, and are not open at 11 PM.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Like I eat Domino's pizza.
Or, if you're living in an apartment complex, get dressed, wait for an eternity for the damn elevator, spend another eternity in said elevator, pick up the pizza, go through the elevator ritual again, find out that you forgot your door keys inside...
I prefer to have the pizza guy do the elevator dance.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
write themselves.
after moore's law, we have Doyle's law.
Old McDonald, had a law, ee-I-ee-I-o
that burgers gonna fly alone, ee-I-ee-I-o
and fly away to ppl's home, ee-I-ee-I-o
It depends. Suppose the savings from not having a driver allows the delivery company to have 2 vehicles on the road instead of one.
Or suppose, right now that I drop my kids off at school on the way to work. It works, but the timing isn't ideal and its not exactly on the way. In the future I can send the kids in an autonomous car, which will drop them off and then drive home empty. I can leave for work directly on my own (overlapping) schedule.
That problem has already been solved.
Have gnu, will travel.
I volunteer to be your exclusive pizza delivery driver. I admire your idea of a tip.
Those robots are not cheap to buy or maintain.
Actually, they are cheap. Most cars already have power steering and braking, so no new actuators are needed. Just some cameras and some software. Software has a high NRE, but near zero marginal cost.
5 megapixel cameras cost less than $5 each. Beginning on 1/1/2018, rear facing cameras are mandatory on all new cars, so only the front and side/oblique cameras are an additional expense.
Lidar is expensive (~ $5000 per car) but it isn't necessary. Waymo uses it, but Tesla does not. The cost will likely drop a lot with mass production.
Self driving capability will add between 0% and 10% to the cost of a car.
nowhere in the article does he say that your pizzas will probably be delivered by autonomous cars within 5 years.
Can the submitter/editors be that bad at reading comprehension or is slashdot just making up/ approving clickbait?
Of course there will be experiments and publicity stunts but there is no way that most pizza deliveries will be done by autonomous vehicles within 5 years, current delivery drivers are just too cheap to compete with.
Open Source is Common Sense: http://groovix.com/
Its almost like we have multiple communities and cultures, and something that works for one might not work for all.
Also, maybe having autonomous delivery doesn't mean drivers no longer exist. Like a gradual rollout to the areas that make the most sense, and leaving people to do the apartments.
I want my pizzas delivered by a Deliverator under the watchful eye of Uncle Enzo.
https://101books.net/2013/02/0...
Nevermore.
First, you'd need to have a vegan pizza on the menu - and I'm not talking about vegetables as topping. Probably won't happen before another decade.
Second, you'd need to open a Domino's Pizza in my small town of 10K people. Never going to happen.
Third, autonomous cars are a lie from the industrial military complex controlled by the covfefe flat earthers.
#DeleteFacebook
Once most vehicles are zero occupancy, the congestion will decrease. The vehicles will more efficiently plan their routes combining trips. Vehicles will organize their sharing of the road. Especially intersections. If there weren't any pesky pedestrians then intersections wouldn't need traffic signals that cost over a million dollars each. (Obvious solution: ban all humans)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
In other words, I don't want to get dressed...
So you answer the door naked when you order pizza?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I don't want my pizza delivered. I want it 3D printed!
In fact, all food can be gelatenous white goop that is textured and flavored to perfection. Yum! The best thing is that it wouldn't be all that different than the quality of pizzas delivered to your door currently. Or McDonalds delicious food-like product.
If the goop could be delivered by some type of plumbing system, then slow, pesky, inefficient humans would never need to leave their domestic units. Doors and windows could be removed. There would be peace. Everything would be wonderful.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
That doesn't mean you won't still need a delivery person inside the car. When I order pizza at a dorm or a hotel and any multi tenant building , I'm generally not interested in going outside and finding the car to get the pizza from it.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
"If Domino's does not provide this, I'll order from someone else who does."
Doesn't matter to me. If I want a Pizza I sure won't order one from Domino's not even if they'd drone it beside my lazyboy.
Don't you? TV has taught me this is how to get away without paying.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
A good chunk of the delivery charge goes to paying the delivery person. With a lot of goods becoming less and less expensive, a bigger part of the cost equation is the person selling them or facilitating the service. It's why all you can eat buffets will let people eat massive quantities of food for lower prices than many meals cost. Individual food ordering, preparation, and service uses up far more human labor that doesn't exist when making certain dishes in bulk and having customers self-serve.
Also, Dominoes won't switch to robots if they cost more because consumers won't pay more money just for the novelty of getting a pizza delivered by robot. Similarly, Dominoes can't afford to bilk customers too much with high deliver charges because there are plenty of other pizza businesses that are going to use it as an opportunity to undercut Dominoes and get more business for themselves.
I wonder if the better solution in that case would be to have a drone do the delivery to the balcony. That would be a lot more efficient in general because the delivery person has to wait for the damned elevator instead of you.
Sometimes I think I have strayed a bit much from the path of wisdom, and become a little too much of a lazy bastard. And it's the worst, when we're thinking about "grubhubbing," usually because I'm too impaired to cook or drive.
Then I get on the Internet, read stuff like this, and feel a lot better. On an absolute scale, I consider myself to be a wreck of an irresponsible, underachieving, criminally-lazy dimwit. But relatively, I feel downright smug! Meet the driver out front!? That's no problem at all! Thank you, Internet.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I think what we need here are robots to order the pizzas and then some other robots to eat it for us. It's a bit like the Electric Monk in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, it believes things for us.
Umm... yeah.
Thinking about it, I did consider it odd that the delivery guy tipped me instead of me tipping him last time...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I want pizza I also wouldn't call Domino's. But from time to time I order there and get that ... whatever food that is they are delivering.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You call that awkward? Dude, if you can smell it on him, that means he can't smell it on you!
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Plus delivery boy?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, some cretin would figure out how to install a virus in your 3D printed pizza, maybe it generates hard pellets upon which you could break a tooth. And there's nothing wrong with McDonalds that isn't wrong with Velveeta Cheese Food (apparently it cannot be called cheese, which is convenient since no one has ever called it cheese).
"gelatenous white goop"...Mmmmmmm...pizza flavored Jello!!
Domino's CEO has an interesting opinion, but I really want to hear what the CEO of Domino's insurance company thinks of the proposal.
Log in or piss off.
I have. Your point?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Drones and pizza delivery are a match made in haven. I believe good drones have a 24 km endurance. That should be perfect for pizza delivery.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Its almost like we have multiple communities and cultures, and something that works for one might not work for all.
Do you mean the sort of thing take totally invalidates hipp5's absolutist statement?
Also, maybe having autonomous delivery doesn't mean drivers no longer exist. Like a gradual rollout to the areas that make the most sense, and leaving people to do the apartments.
Funny how TFA has this quote:
Will people come out of their homes and apartments to get the pizzas, what do we need to do to make that process seamless. You have seen some of our work public on that. We want to be at the forefront.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Though I suspect most people don't pay for pizza with cash anyway.
I can't help but wonder, though, which is cheaper:
Workman's comp for drivers who get robbed, or repair bills for self driving cars that get vandalized.
What? Not Jello flavored pizza?
Or: ((Jello flavored pizza) flavored Jello)
As for McDonalds and Velveeta, the gelatinous cheese-like substance that McDonalds serves certainly tastes better than Velveeta's gelatinous cheese-like substance.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Wait, WTF? Weren't we all promised cool, sleek, aerodynamic FLYING CARS? Who authorized the downgrade to something as boring as regular cars, without drivers, that shuttle pizza hither and yon?
I want my flying car, or at *minimum* I want pizza delivery to change to something more like the first chapter of Snowcrash.
Exactly. At one point did we decide our economy exists to serve machines and not us?
So you answer the door naked when you order pizza?
No, but I may be in my humble PJs. And it might be -20 outside, or raining sideways. And my driveway is long.
Or, I may be on crutches, in which case getting a pizza from the curb to the kitchen table is rather challenging.
In any case, I'd rather pay someone willing to do it a tip.
My homemade pizzas will be delivered from my oven to my table. Nobody can make a better pizza than one you make from scratch. It ain't that hard.
So I have to walk out and not have it at the door? I may as well pick it up
To be clear, are you one of those self-centred people who live directly opposite a Dominos and still orders takeaway? If so your comparison is quite silly.
Yeah this is not the case in the US. Most pizza delivery is done by car in the US.
Those robots are not cheap to buy or maintain.
Actually, they are cheap. Most cars already have power steering and braking, so no new actuators are needed. Just some cameras and some software. Software has a high NRE, but near zero marginal cost.
5 megapixel cameras cost less than $5 each. Beginning on 1/1/2018, rear facing cameras are mandatory on all new cars, so only the front and side/oblique cameras are an additional expense.
Lidar is expensive (~ $5000 per car) but it isn't necessary. Waymo uses it, but Tesla does not. The cost will likely drop a lot with mass production.
Self driving capability will add between 0% and 10% to the cost of a car.
Let's break this down a bit further to find the justification here:
Cost of each autonomous car: $25K (assuming your estimates only increasing the cost slightly) x number of cars (5) per location: $125K
Annual vehicle costs (maintenance, fuel/electricity, etc.): this varies depending on type of car (EV vs. IC), but I'd estimate $15 - 25K for each. These vehicles will be driven damn near every single day in stop-and-go city traffic. Total annual vehicle costs: $75 - $125K
Now, let's not forget about the inevitable; when an autonomous car screws up and causes an accident. There is no driver behind the wheel, just a rich corporation who owns an asset that harmed or killed someone. Liability insurance good enough to insulate the corporation: $10 - 25K per year (rough estimate, this could be far more, all depends on how shitty rush-to-market autonomous solutions prove to be)
Total annual cost: upwards of $275K per year.
Now, let's look at the traditional alternative; hiring a handful of human drivers at $10/hour who own and maintain their own car, pay for their own gas, and carry their own commercial insurance rider.
Tell me again how the hell autonomous solutions are worth it from a business perspective?
Why yes, I'd like a Marauder to shoot it thru my front door, so I won't hafta go outside.
Dunno how the pizza will fare, tho
Essentially a mobility scooter with an insulated cylindrical body of pizza-diameter, with slide-out drawers, a card reader and a cell phone. Throw on some standard lights for road safety.
The thing drives itself to your door, calls you on your phone to advise it has arrived, and when you put your payment card in the reader the drawer(s) with your pizza(s) slide open.
Easy-peasy.
So, what about living in an apartment? Also, I have to actually walk to the curb to get my pizza instead of it being delivered to the door? What exactly am I paying for? I don't want to put on shoes and a coat to go fight with some damned robotic car about my pizza. Drones might help that, but doubtful. Then what happens if there is a problem with the order or something else? Sounds really fun for about 5 seconds, then the reality sets in that it would basically suck for everyone except Domino's.
I don't think you'd even need that much range. Have a truck drive to a central area for multiple delivers and have a drone take it from there instead of having a constant back and forth. If there's enough demand you could have multiple drones operate out of a central truck. Hell, eventually you might be able to put the entire kitchen in the truck.
Exactly this. I ordered in because I don't want to go out. Its cold. Id have to get layered up, put on boots to trudge through the snow around the building to the parking lot. Whereas you will be parked in front of the wrong building.
I will order from someone else.
Note to all, I do tip well especially if the weather is crappy.
Exactly... the rare occasions when I order pizza are usually when the weather is crappy, and I don't want to go out myself. If people have to go outside in pouring rain, etc. to get their pizza, orders will probably plummet during bad weather.
In fact, I'd rather get in my car (in the attached garage), drive the one block to the pizza place, and sprint inside to do my business if it's pouring rain, not stand outside fiddling with a machine and getting soaked.
but brakes are still mechanical and will continue to be so for the forseeable future due to FMVSS requirements. {...} Yes, I am aware there are cars with electric brakes that can stop themselves... just wanted to clear up that "most" is more "a special few".
And due to the high popularity of adaptive cruise control (ACC) and forward collision avoidance systems (FCAS), the "special few" is becoming "quite a big percentage of the cars present on today's street".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
drivers also do inside work when not on the road. Still the cost of owning cars is lot more then paying $1 a run to the drivers.
This. When I ask for delivery I mean for someone else to bring it to my door. I don't want to leave the house. In other words, I don't want to get dressed, put on shoes and walk out to the curb.
I'm sure they'll find a market without you. Like back when I didn't own a car or when I've had a few beers. For me it's more the "fit for socializing" aspect, like if I haven't showered, haven't shaved, hung over, dirty/sweaty clothes and just want to chow down a pizza in front of the TV or PC. Personally I'd rather get my slob ass down to the curb with zero social interaction than greet the pizza delivery guy like that, in fact I might just opt for a frozen pizza instead. A small physical discomfort because it's freezing/raining is not a big deal to me, particularly not if I know there's a warm tasty pizza at the end of it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Or you could build drone-only pizza kitchens in more places to cover all the area within the range of drones. Since a kitchen is almost always the smallest area occupied within a regular restaurant, it would cost a lot less to operate. There's probably savings to be made on permits and other things, too.
#DeleteFacebook
As the mom and pop pizza places I order from still don't even have computers.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
That means I have to walk down to the street to get my pizza from a car.
It's a better service when it's delivered to my door. Especially if it's raining.
Personally I'd rather get my slob ass down to the curb with zero social interaction than greet the pizza delivery guy like that,
It's nice that you live in a place with no neighbors at all. Otherwise, you cannot guarantee "zero social interaction". You're going to the curb, and there are people driving by in cars -- some of them you might know. All of them will see you at your, umm, best? If you are in an apartment building, you could run into any of your neighbors, even the cute girl you're trying to hit on.
With to-the-door delivery, you know the social interaction you will have. One person, who you are paying, and unless your friends are losers who have to delivery pizzas for a living, you won't know.
Of course, if you're still living in your parent's basement, they've seen you naked before, and you probably don't care what their neighbors think.
particularly not if I know there's a warm tasty pizza at the end of it.
We're talking Dominos here.
To be clear, are you one of those self-centred people who live directly opposite a Dominos and still orders takeaway?
He's probably one of those self-centered people who figures if he's paying delivery prices he deserves actual delivery and not "pretty close". He probably also thinks that if he's got to get presentable to go out in the weather to get his pizza, he might as well go someplace good.
The would be only reasonable. The raw product is refrigerated or frozen anyways. Just make it so that it is just ready when arriving. While I am eating either high-quality deep frozen pizza or making my own, I would try that.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If they're going to send my pizza in an autonomous car, they had better send someone in it to walk it to the door for me. Otherwise I'll order elsewhere.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Domino's Pizza outgoing CEO Patrick Doyle, expert on AI and robotics, who has a lot of stock in Dominos and wants to hype it up, says .....
"If they have enough pizza orders to require two cars, they already have two cars. "
What if I only need two cars Friday night.
No reason not to use them both Monday night to shorten waits.
"Just buying another car with what you pay a current driver you no longer need won't generate pizza sales."
Unless the extra short wait times on off peak translates to a competitive advantage. Lets order from XYZ... they're delivery is a lot faster.
Tell me again how the hell autonomous solutions are worth it from a business perspective?
Not the OP, but thought I'd share a different perspective on this. Putting aside, for the moment, your cost estimates for autonomous vehicles (I'll come back to that), let's look at it from the other side. A $10/hour wage is going to cost the employer somewhere between $14-20/per hour by the time you factor in taxes, insurance (worker's comp and unemployment, I believe, are mandatory throughout the U.S., and as you mentioned, liability insurance), plus the additional fees paid to drivers for their gas/mileage/maintenance, etc.... I may be low-balling a bit, but let's call it $16/hour. And the dominoes nearby whose hours I looked at says they're open from 10:30am to 1am daily, which seems fairly typical -- 14.5 hours per day, 7 days a week comes to 5278 hours per year, but if we consider some holidays and early closing days, let's round it down to 5100. With our $16/hour number, that's $81,600 in costs avoided per year. For having one vehicle, available any time the location is open.
Now, as for your estimates. Non-fuel costs (tires, oil, preventative maintenance) for fleet vehicles tend to run well under $100/per month even for very high mileage vehicles, but let's call it $100 since small business owners may not have all the advantages of a large fleet operation. Now, if we assume a high utilization rate of 50% (driving time) and a high average speed of 20mph, that gives us about 51000 miles per year. At 25mpg (probably on the low side), that's 2040 gallons of gas. At the current national average of $2.528, that's $5157.12 in fuel costs, or $6357.12 when combined with maintenance. Even if that's off by 100%, and the vehicle cost is $30K or more, compared to the $81K driver cost, it's still a big savings in the first year. Other considerations that might offer less obvious advantages include tax treatment of the expenditures (capital and operating expenses vs. payroll) and depreciation.
Of course, that's the best case scenario, where we're comparing the maximum cost for having one driver available during all open hours. But it's obviously not a binary choice, in which a location has to have all autonomous vehicle or all human employee drivers. We won't even get into the discussion of whether the vehicle has to be a "car" in the normal sense, since it only has to carry food, not passengers.
maybe a little robot would come down off a ramp and carry the pizza to your door
First we Run off of the industrial jobs and other Living Wage Jobs for people with Just a HS diploma. These people are forced to work low paying service jobs. Now lets Invent machines that eliminate the low paying service jobs.
I'm sure they will do just fine with out my patronage. An so will I. It is not like domnos is the only game in town for pizza delivery. Plus its not like delivery is the only option I have. Good thing about having other drivers in my household that I can tell to go get me a pizza. So there are plenty of options for pizza with out leaving the house.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I think the logic is rather that if I ask for delivery, I want delivery. If Domino's does not provide this, I'll order from someone else who does.
What if Domino's is $5 cheaper, but you have to walk to the curb? Or $10?
If delivery to the door means having to pay a driver, that cost will be reflected in the price. You can choose to pay it if you want, and if you can find a pizza place that will do it. I suspect that the vast majority will choose the lower price and walk to the curb, so there will soon be no stores that provide delivery to the door. Well, until they put a robot in the car that will walk / wheel / fly it to the door for you.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
What does pizza cost in the US? 10 bucks cheaper would mean you get money if you order a pizza here...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What does pizza cost in the US? 10 bucks cheaper would mean you get money if you order a pizza here...
Including delivery?
I just went to Domino's.com and created an order to check. The delivery charge for my mom's house (there's no pizza delivery service to my house; my area is too rural, but my mom is 30 miles away, so a reasonable proxy), is $2.50. Plus a tip, of course. Assuming two medium cheese pizzas ($12.99 each), four bottles of Coke and an order of bread twists with dipping sauce, plus delivery fee, the total is $45.09, so that's about a $7 for a tip.
Assuming the delivery surcharge of $2.50 stays the same, the main savings would be the tip. So, in this case, $7.
I don't know where you live, but if tipping is not the norm in your location, then the delivery charge will almost certainly be higher (adjusting for currency and cost of living), because $2.50 is unlikely to be enough to pay for the driver's time, unless the store is very close to your house.
What it boils down to is that unless labor is extremely cheap in your area, the bulk of the cost of delivery will be labor, not vehicle wear and tear or fuel. And whatever that labor amount is, eliminating the human reduces the delivery cost by about that much. In the US, labor costs are high enough that the savings is non-trivial.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Any company that doesn't deliver it to my door won't get my business. I don't want to have to walk out in the snow or rain, or in my shorts to some robo car.
Just another day in Paradise
Tell me again how the hell autonomous solutions are worth it from a business perspective?
Not the OP, but thought I'd share a different perspective on this. Putting aside, for the moment, your cost estimates for autonomous vehicles (I'll come back to that), let's look at it from the other side. A $10/hour wage is going to cost the employer somewhere between $14-20/per hour by the time you factor in taxes, insurance (worker's comp and unemployment, I believe, are mandatory throughout the U.S., and as you mentioned, liability insurance), plus the additional fees paid to drivers for their gas/mileage/maintenance, etc.... I may be low-balling a bit, but let's call it $16/hour. And the dominoes nearby whose hours I looked at says they're open from 10:30am to 1am daily, which seems fairly typical -- 14.5 hours per day, 7 days a week comes to 5278 hours per year, but if we consider some holidays and early closing days, let's round it down to 5100. With our $16/hour number, that's $81,600 in costs avoided per year. For having one vehicle, available any time the location is open.
Now, as for your estimates. Non-fuel costs (tires, oil, preventative maintenance) for fleet vehicles tend to run well under $100/per month even for very high mileage vehicles, but let's call it $100 since small business owners may not have all the advantages of a large fleet operation. Now, if we assume a high utilization rate of 50% (driving time) and a high average speed of 20mph, that gives us about 51000 miles per year. At 25mpg (probably on the low side), that's 2040 gallons of gas. At the current national average of $2.528, that's $5157.12 in fuel costs, or $6357.12 when combined with maintenance. Even if that's off by 100%, and the vehicle cost is $30K or more, compared to the $81K driver cost, it's still a big savings in the first year. Other considerations that might offer less obvious advantages include tax treatment of the expenditures (capital and operating expenses vs. payroll) and depreciation.
Of course, that's the best case scenario, where we're comparing the maximum cost for having one driver available during all open hours. But it's obviously not a binary choice, in which a location has to have all autonomous vehicle or all human employee drivers. We won't even get into the discussion of whether the vehicle has to be a "car" in the normal sense, since it only has to carry food, not passengers.
Thank you for taking the time to break this down. I realized that my calculations for maintenance were a bit off, and there is the matter of liability insurance for running a fleet of autonomous vehicles, but I can see the potential savings here. Even if it were merely a 10% reduction in costs to the business, the reliability factor would also probably justify it.
I suppose now the larger question becomes a matter of tax burden; what will be the cost to a business that chooses autonomous solutions over giving humans jobs in order to fund UBI? After we deploy the Driveinator 1000, eCashier, iWaitress, and the Burgertron, there's going to be a lot of young adults out there who are unemployable. If you think back to what jobs people do today in order to fund higher education, this push to get rid of all those "lowly" positions tends to start removing the bottom half of the rungs on the Ladder of Success, making it rather impossible for anyone to climb.
If course, once we have good-enough AI, it will be targeting highly educated and skilled positions as well, so the justification for higher learning begins to erode.
It will be interesting to see how our economy and future survives and thrives with these "cheap" solutions. Greed tends to be short-sighted, and rarely cares about that condition.
Companies around here noticed quickly that you can charge a buck more per pizza, people accept that, but as soon as you charge for delivery you get sorted out. We also have a lot of small restaurants rather than a few big chains. Competition is good for the customer.
A decent pizza is about 7-8 EUR around here, depending on what you want on it. Usually they require you to order for at least 12.00 or so to make delivery free, but that's easily doable as soon as you have 2 pizzas or one large one in your order.
And on top of it all, you actually get a pizza. Not ... hell, whatever it is that Domino's is actually delivering.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Still too expensive.
The logic is that if I have to put my inclement-weather clothing on and go outside, I may as well do something besides argue with a machine over a pizza. One big advantage of delivery pizza is that I can get it without going outside. If I still have to get bundled up, I may as well get something healthier.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I suppose now the larger question becomes a matter of tax burden; what will be the cost to a business that chooses autonomous solutions over giving humans jobs in order to fund UBI?
That's a good point, and something I hope we start to figure out soon.
once we have good-enough AI, it will be targeting highly educated and skilled positions as well
That's already happening, too. Medicine, law and other high profile, high status, well paid professions. Not quite to the same level as in this discussion where we're talking about 100% replacing the human worker. But if the smart search case law research algorithm can save the 20% of time an attorney spends doing research, he can do more of the other 80% of things he does. So where you used to need 5 lawyers, you might only need 4 now. Same kind of thing for, e.g. a radiologist. If an AI tool can help her do diagnoses much faster, maybe her hospital and/or the healthcare system in general needs fewer radiologists.
It will be interesting to see how our economy and future survives and thrives with these "cheap" solutions.
Indeed. I think a lot of people believe that "post scarcity" is just around the corner, but I think it will be a slower transition than many predict. The enabling tech is still advancing rapidly, but not at Moore's Law rates anymore. Hopefully, we are able to get some kind of UBI or other support system in place before widespread unemployment becomes a critical issue.
You, hipp5, have been uncharacteristically vocal and very defensive in this thread. Do you work for Domino's?
Not in the least. Nor do I own any Domino's stock. I'm just tired of the neckbeard blustering and nerd rage on Slashdot.