Ford to Deliver Pizza with Self-Driving Delivery Cars in Miami

Ford announced on Tuesday that it teamed up with the two above-mentioned companies to test self-driving delivery cars. In its entirety, the experience will be an eerie one for customers, to say the least.

The fleet of Ford Fusion hybrids to be deployed on the streets of Miami will be used to test how customers will interact with the vehicle to retrieve their food or groceries.

But the funny part is that, since the carmaker still hasn’t enough faith the self-driving technologies will work without a glitch, the Fusions will be manned, meaning some guy will stay inside the car, as it goes from the sender of the goods to the customer.

Eerie as it may seem, the humans onboard the cars will not be allowed to interact with customers getting their merchandise from the car.

“Today, deliveries can be made to someone’s door, though there is usually an extra charge involved," says Ford’s vice president Sherif Marakby in an article on Medium.

“Oftentimes, drivers illegally double-park when they can’t find a space, potentially causing traffic congestion for others. A self-driving vehicle won’t need to be tipped, and it won’t park illegally.”

To be fair, drivers of delivery cars do park illegally, but they do that so they can get your goods right up to the door. Ford’s fleet of self-driving cars will park wherever is permitted, and then will ask the customers to pick their order from wherever.

Ford plans the Miami project to act as a test bed for the launch of the purpose-built self-driving vehicle in 2021.