On today’s dump we’ve got EV pizza delivery, an Amazon/Argo bombshell, Mazda trying to figure out its EV plans, and a story that combines all of that into one.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday
Avoid The Noid, He Eats Pizzas!
There was a Domino’s Pizza down the street from my college apartment and my roommate (shout out David!) would take advantage of a great deal wherein one human could buy three medium, one-topping pizzas for $15 and get a free two-liter of soda thrown in just for the diabetes. He basically lived on this pizza. It was disgusting, actually, but now Domino’s has eventually rolled that dough (sorry, not sorry) into a fleet of electric Chevy Bolts.
Hell yeah. I delivered pizzas in a clapped out Ford Escort and I’d have loved to be cruising in one of these babies. The Deliverator it ain’t, but it’s still pretty cool.
From the super excited press release:
Domino’s Pizza Inc., the largest pizza company in the world, is electrifying pizza delivery! More than 100 custom-branded 2023 Chevy Bolt electric vehicles are arriving at select franchise and corporate stores throughout the U.S. this month, with an additional 700 rolling out in the coming months, making it the largest electric pizza delivery fleet in the country. To see an interactive map of how many Domino’s Chevy Bolt EVs are currently in each state and how many are coming soon, visit dominos.com/evfleet.
Dawg, they even have a website. Here’s some more explanation of why:
Electric vehicles provide several advantages for Domino’s stores, including ample battery life with the potential to have days of deliveries, zero tailpipe emissions, advanced safety features and lower average maintenance costs than nonelectric vehicles – all without the financial impact of high gas prices. Electric fleet vehicles also provide more opportunity to attract delivery drivers who don’t have a car of their own. Today, Domino’s already delivers with electric bikes and/or scooters in 24 international markets, including the U.S.
I love this.
Here’s a bonus photo in case you cannot use your imagination to comprehend what this would look like.
How Amazon Contributed To Crashing Argo’s Self Driving Business
The collapse of Ford/VW-backed Argo AI felt sudden to those on the outside, but details are emerging to explain how the once $7+ billion self-driving business slowly fell apart. The obvious answer as to why this happened, based on Ford’s multi-billion dollar write-down, is that it cost a ton of money and didn’t make any money. It’s a little more complex than that, of course.
Ford and Volkswagen did persuade Lyft to come along as a partner in 2021, but sources have made clear that the deal was a small slice of the company in exchange for data, and no cash changed hands. This explains why, allegedly, Ford and VW made a play to get Amazon to pour some cash into Argo.
According to this report from Bloomberg, Amazon ran a few test routes in Miami with Argo Ford Fusions and was on the verge of putting in hundreds of millions of dollars after a visit from then-Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess. So what happened?
Per Bloomberg:
[B]y spring, Ford and VW still hadn’t agreed to terms on sharing Argo with Amazon. Ford would eventually acquiesce. VW remained wary that Amazon — with a reputation for dominating partnerships — would draw talent and resources away from the German automaker’s ambitious self-driving strategy, according to the people.
At about that time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further destabilized a global economy dealing with supply-chain issues and, in the US, the highest inflation in 40 years. Suddenly, spending billions on a still-unproven technology didn’t look like a such a good bet.
And then key players involved in the deal began departing their companies. At Amazon, the mergers and acquisitions executive championing the deal and working directly with Argo left. Around the same time, Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s consumer business, also exited.
And then, of course, Diess got shitcanned. There’s a lot more in the report and it’s worth reading in full as there’s a ton of good intel.
There’s a cautionary tale in here for anyone hoping to make money off of unproven technology still in its infancy. The company was created in the hopes of luring an automaker and that’s what happened with Ford buying in immediately. After dumping money into the company Ford persuaded Volkswagen to jump in as well. Eventually, Volkswagen tried to cajole Amazon into investing before they passed. Amazon seems like the smart party here.
Mazda Maybe Has A Plan For EVs, Maybe
Mazda is the car company all car journalists want to succeed because it seems like it spend that extra 5% of time and energy developing cars that don’t feel completely boring. I am a sucker for this as well. What do they spend the rest of their time doing? Making cars and chasing powertrain solutions in seemingly random patterns.
Remember the rotary? Rotaries are awesome and a key part of who Mazda is and, of course, the company doesn’t make them anymore because they are not particularly practical in most applications. Remember when Mazda was huge on diesels? It went as far as getting them certified here just in time for Volkswagen to ruin the diesel market. Mazda killed that program. Remember Skyactiv-X? Where’s that in the U.S.?
Electric cars? Mazda’s offering is an expensive and small EV that only gets 100 miles of range. You only need 100 miles of range most of the time, of course, but when everyone is offering double the range it’s just a bad look.
It seems like this is starting to change as Mazda’s CEO announced an $11 billion investment to electrify the company’s lineup by 2030. According to this MarketWatch story, they even have a battery partner:
Along the road to 2030, factors such as regulations and charging and energy infrastructure are likely to remain uncertain, Mr. Marumoto said. “Being able to flexibly respond based on customer needs and infrastructure is the path I believe we should take.”
Mazda said Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with battery maker Envision AESC to procure batteries for EVs produced in Japan.
I want them to succeed because, again, I’m a sucker for Mazda and I bet the company will eventually make a good EV. [Editor’s Note: I think it’s going to be challenging for Mazda to stand out in the EV space as it has in the ICE space. Mazda’s appeal today is largely based on driving dynamics and fun — a good stickshift and a lightweight, well-balanced chassis. Well, the stick is gone in an EV, and the weight is all down low between the axles like it is on all EVs. There are still plenty of knobs to turn (chassis tuning, design, interior quality), but it’s not going to be easy to maintain that driver-focused edge. This is a potential challenge that’s not specific to Mazda, of course, as there are other automakers whose “edge” revolved around ICE-related attributes. -DT]
Brightdrop Should Make $1 Billion This Year
Ok, let’s combine all the stories above into one story. This tale of success has everything: electric cars, delivery vehicles, Teddy Graham people, and a big automaker investment.
Brightdrop, the General Motors-backed delivery company, is on track to make $1 billion this year. From a company press release:
The revenue news comes ahead of the company’s two year anniversary and just 11 months after breaking the record for the fastest vehicle to market in GM’s history. Some of the most notable tech and consumer brands took over five years to reach the $1 billion milestone, however BrightDrop will be joining the billion-dollar league in less than three years — demonstrating the company’s strategy, vision, tech expertise and commitment to the market.
BrightDrop has received over 25,000 reservations and letters of intent from some of the world’s largest companies including Walmart, Hertz, FedEx and Verizon — and already has vehicles on the road making deliveries today. In September, the company unveiled Trace Grocery, an eCart designed to improve online grocery fulfillment, and announced Kroger as the first company slated to take delivery of the units.
It’s not as sexy as fancy autonomous driving, but the last-mile problem for delivery is still a problem and electric vehicles make a lot of sense as a solution.
The Flush
What is the perfect pizza delivery vehicle? You have to do better than a 1994 Ford Escort.
“Domino’s Pizza Will Have America’s Largest Electric Pizza Delivery Fleet”
Electric pizzas are a thing now? And they’re delivered?
The future is AWESOME!
Best Pizza Delivery Vehicle?
1984 Renault Alliance 5-speed with extra tall pizza-cutter snow tires. I would take the snow storm shifts no-one else wanted and live off tips.
I delivered for Domino’s from ’99-’02 in Wilmington, NC in an ’86 Robin’s Egg Blue Escort wagon, an ’80 4-speed Civic, a ’94 LHS and a ’94 Formula Firebird (LT-1 engine, worst delivery vehicle ever).
The pizza special Matt describes above was called the “2+2+2 Special” (2 mediums, 2 toppings, 2 liter) and was $14.95 at that time.
On the occasions that a customer gave you a $20 and a nickel and asked for $5 in change, (thus leaving you a 5-cent tip), there were under-the-radar (and definitely not in writing) instructions by the at-the-time Assistant Manager to take out any plants and shrubs bordering the driveway while pulling out.
Don’t focus too hard on the tipping math above. We’re still asking for comment editing for Christmas.
Best delivery vehicle? Anything that gets 30 mpg or better while flogging it. A good defroster for winter when delivering more sheets than can fit in a bag, good headlights for spotting mailboxes in the middle of nowhere, and an easy to open trunk/hatch. Compact sedans work very well for this.
And, if you do not use a hot bag, you’re dumb. It keeps the smell down, keeps the pizzas warm, anchors the pizza down to the floor, and prevents disaster when the wings spill. Keep a bunch of napkins in a bag to wipe them off before delivery and quite a few customers won’t care. And about the wings, place the container in the back corner of the bag on the corner of the box. Signed, a former pizza delivery driver.
Perfect pizza delivery vehicle would have an app and an oven. The store makes the prebaked pizza tosses on a baking tray and into the car oven. It has a preset temp app figures out time to bake so you arrive as the pizza just finished cooking. Pull it out box it deliver piping hot for a great tip. God why am i cursed with sharing great ideas for free and noone throwing cash at me like i am a stripper?
As a kid, one of my prized possessions was an Ertl-made 1/64 diecast Chevette in Domino’s livery complete with the Domino on top that a friend at school gave me. They were for employees and his much-older brother was a manager. It may have been the first toy I kept for display purposes only.
Later, I learned to drive on a manual Chevette, sans Domino. A while after that I started as a Domino’s delivery driver. Years later Dominos comes out with their Spark delivery specials. A few years later I buy a Spark. Now they’re using Bolts. I’m thinking of buying a Bolt to replace our Volt. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.
The 7 months I worked at Dominos were quite a time. We had three company cars, two turds and a Nissan that wasn’t too bad. The employee who actually helped me get the job there in the first place managed to roll all three of those cars. That was before he was hauled out of the place in cuffs for his part in some kind of college textbook buyback scam. I made it all the way to night manager before quitting for something much better. I managed to use 4 different cars of my own for delivery during that time – an ’87 Stanza, an ’84 Celica, an ’81 Cougar, and a $200 1970 Plymouth Satellite in triple green. The Satellite was my favorite, and I used that to train other drivers.
The best of that bunch, and still likely one of the best delivery vehicles out there (if you could find one these days) was my shit-brown/rusty Toyota Celica (which I also gave $200 for). I could haul two of the large, catering-size pizza bags in the hatch area with the seats down, and at least three more normal-sized pizza carriers in the passenger seat. That added up to something between an ass-load and a fuck-ton of pizzas, with the corresponding dot-matrix printed tags stuck all all the way down both arms on some runs. The car was ugly enough not to care about, dead reliable, and fuel-costs never much ate into the tip-haul. Also, and DT would be proud of this, the rust allowed for a stealth entry system – if I locked my keys in the car, I just had to bend the lower part of the hatch out slightly and I could flip the latch mechanism allowing me to crawl back up to the driver’s seat.
Two significant positives about that job – the first being I got to know the college town I was living in exceptionally well. That directly led to the second, which was seeing what apartment complexes had areas with free parking in big lots that weren’t too well observed. Keeping the fleet scattered was the only way I was able to hang on to a collection of 3 to 4 cars as a broke college student.
Did you drive your Plymouth Satellite
Faster than the speed of light?
Strangely enough, I’ve delivered in an 87 Stanza, and an 81 and 85 Celica.
Perfect pizza delivery vehicle? The Deliverator from the novel Snow Crash. It could be a Hyundai N Vision 74, but instead of a fuel cell, a battery pack with enough capacity to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. This way, the driver working for Cosa Nostra Pizza can get the pizza to its destination in under 30 minutes, so that the customer isn’t entitled to shoot the driver for being late.
“You only need 100 miles of range most of the time”
Nonsense. 100 miles of range makes it a city car, period. It’s a 50 mile round trip to my barn where I keep the weekend car, which is a drive I do a lot. It’s not much further than a lot of people’s daily commute (In fact, people do that exact drive as their commute). In the winter that would leave me an uncomfortably small margin for error once you factor in the loss of range from cold weather. If I wanted to make a side trip to the state park nearby I’d probably end up stranded on the side of the road.
I can’t even recall hearing of BrightDrop. Y’all should do an article about it (assuming you didn’t already and I somehow missed it).
“Domino’s Pizza Will Have America’s Largest Electric Pizza Delivery Fleet”
Next announcement: they’ve invented an electric pizza.
Apparently, my old Chevy truck was used as a pizza delivery vehicle for a while in Spokane. Full size, 4×4, 4 speed granny manual, 12-13 mpg around town. I bet all their tip money went straight into the gas tank…
Best pizza delivery vehicle? A turbocharged 1981 Volvo 245 GLT long-roof. Scads of room for pizzas in the back. Classy yet understated. Fast enough to get there before the pizza gets cold. Gives the customer the impression that you truly care about the safety of their pizza, but can’t afford anything really expensive, ensuring solid tippage.
Best pizza delivery vehicle I’m thinking something like a Subaru with the all wheel drives and decent gas mileage and big old hatchback and such.
I’ve never owned a Mazda so never understood the constant skewing of car reviews towards them, especially since I don’t see many old Mazdas on the roads, like the juicy fruit gum of cars, tastes real good for a few chews but then all rusted and busted.
Flush: Electric Vespa type scooter with a built in box on the back.
My local Dominos had a guy delivering for them in a pre-2000 Impreza WRX.
I can cook my own pizza for a tiny fraction of the cost of a Dominos, it takes less time, and never turns up cold because they couldn’t find my house.
Glad to see Dominos is getting into the EV delivery game. Now if we can just get them to make actual pizza…
So the DXP oven in the side model is no more? That’s a shame, an electric seems like the perfect platform for that, and everyone appreciates a well cared for pizza.
And that’s also the answer Domino’s spent millions on designing and modifying the DXP, so I’m giving it the nod.
Also, BrightDrop will not “make” $1 Billion this year. They will take in that amount of revenue, probably while operating at a loss, meaning they made less than nothing on the balance sheet.
I remember an article back on the other site about a guy who was buying the DXP oven models when they were sold. But Dominoes was trying to sue him to get the “proprietary technology” back. I never did find out what happened there.
It was samcrac on YouTube. I think he settled and they paid for the car.
He bought it at copart. It wasn’t ever supposed to make it to the auction.
The shelf in my oven slides out to deliver my pizza. Works perfectly.
I’m glad to see Brightdrop succeed. This is a perfect use case for electrification and one that still delivers benefits to the environment. I hope they don’t get sucked into wasting time and money on all the autonomous B.S. but it would be cool if they could introduce a geofence technology to make it impossible for them to park in bike lanes.
Best pizza delivery?
Toyota Prius or Corolla Hybrid with the rear seats down and the front passenger seat removed and a parcel shelf installed. Virtually no maintenance costs, and makes a tidy profit on any mileage paid. There’s nothing better than a sturdy shelf in the front instead of a seat when you’re coming in hot and fast. It completely eliminates the awkward bagholding with your right arm as you go around sharp corners.
Best pizza delivery car during the many years I delivered?
89 Dodge Colt with a 5 speed. I put wider tires on it and replaced the front passenger seat with a parcel shelf. It was basically unkillable and cost virtually nothing at all to maintain once I learned how to change the timing belt and replace the halfshafts myself. Mine served so well that my partner of the time bought one, too. Loads of credit to Mitsubishi for that car.
Perfect pizza delivery car? Ferrari 250 GT SWB Breadvan
What is the perfect pizza delivery vehicle? You have to do better than a 1994 Ford Escort.
A 1995 Ford Escort.
I remember a lot of pizza places seemed to absolutely love the Chevette Scooter
Dominos near me has a yellow chevette in the lot with a sign on the roof. I’m yet to see it move however, it proudly sits out front
A vehicle with a sign in some cases acts as a sign where the local government decides not to allow tax paying businesses to advertise their business
It’s resting. Or maybe pining for the fjords…
I am disappointed these bolts don’t have some heat exchanger to scrub Battery temperature while keeping the pizza’s warm, but honestly the perfect unit was probably the sonic with the Vendor heater. at least for the customer, it was pretty good.
The one I would actually want to drive to deliver is the Tritan A2 though
Perfect pizza delivery vehicle is basically an electric kei car. Something with a small battery, enough room for the delivery and a driver, and a light weight.
Wrong tbey need a warming oven because they dont send a driver out for just 1 order. It is usual 3 or more. They will hold an order to get more orders. You need a 2nd passenger seat for training and supervisors. Creating a vehicle just for pizza delivery would price it out so far it wouldnt be affordable. A decent suspension so the imitation cheese doesnt bounce and get stuck to the lid of the box.
All the companies are trying to push to single deliveries per trip. Which drives down tips per hour. Which makes drivers want to quit. Yet they complain no one wants to work for them.
Perfect pizza delivery vehicle? Anything that’s company owned that you don’t have to pay maintenance or fuel bills on.
Agreed but i would add delivering something that tastes like pizza. And at least one othe pizza company having a fleet.
Oh boy look at me i own the largest company in the world (with a ceo who wears different colored toe socks). Its the old rare car because of ordering options noone wants, like Dominoes Pizza. Cardboard, ketchup, cheese food, plus expensive toppings because there are no cheap topping alternatives. Really i stopped eating their garbage decades ago when 30 minutes or free dissappeared.
I admit to not really getting the Mazda hype thing.
Apart from the Miata, everything of theirs that I’ve driven has been meh. Not really better or worse than the competition. The 3 I test drove had an absolutely awful clutch, like an on/off switch (this was a while ago, maybe they’ve fixed it?). Certainly nothing stood out as a reason to take a chance on a brand known locally for rust above all else.
The newer 3s don’t drive as well as the older, 1st and 2nd gen models, in my opinion, and it’s largely due to the clutch and shifter action. My favorite 3 of all time is the 2nd gen 2.5L hatchback. Perfect size/performance/engagement/usability combo. The later ones just didn’t feel the same. The shifting didn’t feel as good, they felt heavier, more claustrophobic. Certainly not terrible, but not as good. I was disappointed. (Close second to the Speed3, the only car I’ve driven that I think actively wanted to kill me. In a good way. But I wouldn’t want to daily drive it)
Even my ND Miata shifter, to me anyway, doesn’t feel as good as the NC I had. I love that car, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d have to think hard about getting another NC.
On the other hand, I had a CX-5 as a rental once. For an SUV, it actually felt pretty good. Responsive, well balanced, eager. Unlike others I’ve driven that just felt typically appliance-like. I’m not a fan of SUV, mind you, but it stood out in that respect.
So Mazda may be past its prime in that driving dynamics department, but the DNA is still there, lurking.
I owned a 2012 Speed3 for about 5 yrs (it was my wife’s daily) and it was a great car. It would putter around all day like an econobox if you stayed out of the boost. But above 4k rpm, it was a snarling beast with violent acceleration (and torque steer). And the 6 speed felt great. Nice clutch and short, firm shifts.
I had a Mazda3. It was slightly better than a Corolla Matrix to drive, but felt flimsier and rusted like it was built in 1980. Now they barely have manuals and only on the castrato engine and “driver chassis tuning” apparently finds torsion beams acceptable in this century on a reportedly fun to drive car that’s expensive for its class against competitors with independent suspensions and is really the only model besides the Miata with any possible claim to being fun (a “fun” CUV is only possibly fun in comparison to its horrid competition, which is something like a very mild version of rating the enjoyability of the activities available to a Ukrainian in a Russian concentration camp). I highly suspect even the Miata is overrated, but they’re too damn small inside to bother caring.
Imho, Mazda does an especially nice job with the color red.
Considering Mazda sent me an email yesterday highlighting the “Straight 6” badge they’re putting on the CX-90, I don’t have much hope for an exciting electric model from them any time soon.
“Considering Mazda sent me an email yesterday highlighting the “Straight 6” badge they’re putting on the CX-90, I don’t have much hope for an exciting electric model from them any time soon.”
A Skyactiv Straight Six is pretty damn exciting all on its own.
Ohh! Goosebumps!