Is it the end of maniacs on mopeds?: Now, your pizza will be delivered by robot

Fast food giant Domino’s wants to use robots to deliver its pizzas in New Zealand. It plans to test its metre-high, four-wheel Domino’s Robotic Unit, which it says can cover a 20km (12 mile) radius of a store before returning to recharge. The battery-powered device uses on-board sensors to avoid obstacles. It also has a heated compartment that can hold up to 10 pizzas and customers are given a code to enter on a keypad to unlock it.

DRU is cheeky and endearing and we are confident that one day he will become an integral part of the Domino?s family

Domino's New Zealand general manager Scott Bush

No date has been fixed for the trial but it is being backed by the New Zealand government. Transport minister Simon Bridges said: “This is an exciting opportunity for New Zealand… over the last 12 months I’ve been actively and aggressively promoting New Zealand as a test bed for new transport technology trials.” The robot, which bears a similarity to Eve from the movie Wall-E, was built in Australia. The company has run tests on the streets of Brisbane but admitted the droid needed “a little bit of” human help.

If we were to see more of this, I think it would really enhance New Zealanders’ lifestyles: we’d be ahead of the curve, we’d be getting hold of advanced technologies earlier.

Transport minister Simon Bridges

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