When it comes to mobility partnerships, Ford Motor Co. and Domino's Pizza seemed as unlikely a combo as anchovies and pineapple on pizza.
So why did they do it?
"We believe self-driving technology can play a significant role in helping grow the market for restaurant delivery, serving as one way that we'll build demand and scale for our autonomous vehicle business, in addition to people movement such as ride-hailing," Sherif Marakby, Ford vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification, said in August.
That's when the duo linked up for a two-month autonomous pizza delivery pilot in Ann Arbor, Mich. It led to a number of findings about the potential of such a service as a revenue opportunity and has led the companies to expand their own pilots into other cities.
"You think that pizza delivery is pretty innocuous, but oh my God, did we learn stuff," Jim Farley, Ford's president of global markets, told Automotive News late last year. "And we can incorporate those learnings directly into the vehicle and into the vehicle development system."
