When customers in Vancouver placed orders with Pizza Hut in September, many of the pies landed on doorsteps without a courier in sight.
Instead, diners were met by Angie, Hugo or Raja — autonomous robots resembling a cooler on four wheels with eyelike lights. They travelled by sidewalk to customers, who used unique codes to open their lids and reveal their food.Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Calgary SUN, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
Ali Kashani, Serve’s Vancouver-bred chief executive, considers the criticism to be a natural part of innovation that even the bicycle experienced, when it was invented and many thought it would cause divorce. “There’s a lot of reasons to replace our cars with these robots as quickly as we really can, but there’s no reason for us to make anyone an enemy,” Kashani said.
“It’s not like we’re denying people a service,” he said. “We’ve got a way to deliver pizzas that we’ve had since we’ve had pizza delivery. It’s called human beings.”tap here to see other videos from our teamManish Dhankher, Pizza Hut Canada’s chief customer officer, agrees no pizza delivery is worth risking somebody’s safety, but said his company only partnered with Serve once the robots had made thousands of injury-free trips.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Food delivery robots hit Canadian sidewalks, but many challenges delay mass adoptionWhen customers in Vancouver placed orders with Pizza Hut in September, many of the pies landed on doorsteps without a courier in sight.
Read more »
Food delivery robots hit Canadian sidewalks, but many challenges delay mass adoptionWhen customers in Vancouver placed orders with Pizza Hut in September, many of the pies landed on doorsteps without a courier in sight.
Read more »
Food delivery robots hit Canadian sidewalks, but many challenges delay mass adoptionTORONTO — When customers in downtown Vancouver placed orders with Pizza Hut in September, many of the pies landed on their doorsteps without a courier in sight.
Read more »
Food delivery robots hit Canadian sidewalks, but many challenges delay mass adoptionThe value proposition for Serve Robotics -- a spinoff of Uber's 2020 food delivery acquisition Postmates that created a fleet of zero-emission robots -- is simple: with slim restaurant margins, a labour crunch and climate change worries 'why move a two-pound burrito in a two-ton car?' But the company faces several roadblocks the path to ubiquity.
Read more »
Food delivery robots hit Canadian sidewalks, but many challenges delay mass adoptionWhen customers in Vancouver placed orders with Pizza Hut in September, many of the pies landed on doorsteps without a courier in sight.
Read more »
Ottawa motion challenges Bill 23; province promises to keep cities 'whole'Provincial housing minister Steve Clark says his government is \u0022committing to ensuring municipalities are kept whole.\u0022
Read more »