Cold pizza no more: Domino’s reengineers the delivery car

Forget insulated bags. Domino’s Pizza Inc. wants to keep your pie warm during delivery with its in-car oven.

The Ann Arbor-based pizza company is rolling out a specially designed pizza-delivery vehicle based on the 2015 Chevrolet Spark called the DXP, or Delivery Expert.

The DXP has a built-in warming oven behind the driver’s door, which can hold about eight pizzas. The car itself was reconfigured so that there’s only the driver’s seat and room for up to 80 pizzas and side items, the company said.

“The Domino’s DXP is the first purpose-built vehicle aimed at revolutionizing pizza delivery,� said Russell Weiner, president of Domino’s USA. “This innovation allows drivers to do their jobs with greater ease and efficiency.�

The car took more than three years to develop and was the combined idea of Domino’s, Michigan-based automotive engineering company Roush Enterprises and former General Motors Research and Development executive Kenneth Baker.

Development began with an online crowdsourcing design competition, which garnered 385 entries from around the world. Then, Roush and Baker adapted the concepts to transform the Spark into the DXP.

Over the next 90 days, DXPs will be delivered to 25 markets nationwide, including San Diego and Seattle.

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Domino’s said two-thirds of its business is pizza delivery and the company delivers about 400 million pizzas a year in the U.S.

But don’t expect Domino’s delivery drivers to completely ditch normal vehicles. Weiner said most deliveries still will be made in the personal cars of the drivers.

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