Domino's Pizza is investing in electric cars. An attempt to overcome a worker shortage

Domino's Pizza is investing in electric cars. This attempt is to overcome a worker shortage that has hobbled pie deliveries industry-wide this year. According to the deal, more than 800 all-electric pizza delivery vehicles will be put into service in the coming months, starting with over 100 of them rolling out in November. The company went with the compact Chevy Bolt EV and is wrapping the vehicles with custom branding but no other bells and whistles — just combustion-free deliveries.

"Domino's has always been on the cutting edge of pizza delivery, and electric delivery cars make sense as vehicle technology continues to evolve," Russell Weiner, Domino's chief executive officer, said in a press release. "We've made a commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and this is one way we can begin reducing our environmental impact, one delivery at a time."

"We've got a long way to go, but we will have the biggest fleet of electric vehicles in the pizza industry, period." Domino's CEO Russell Weiner told Wall Street Journal in an interview.

Domino's will have a fleet of 855 new electric vehicles, to be exact, and while that's not quite enough to reach all 6,135 of the pizza shops in the US, it's more than the Chevy Spark-based (gas version) ones it built with custom pizza warming oven doors in 2015. Those were called Domino's DXP, and only 155 of them were made. For the new Bolts, drivers will need to toss the HeatWave bags in the backseat like any other car.

According to Mr. Weiner, electric vehicles should help the company lure drivers who have other job options, or lack wheels. Those factors have crimped Domino's business, he said. The new vehicles also will advance the company's environmental goals by cutting carbon-dioxide emissions produced by traditional gas-fueled cars. This move is part of American companies' broader embrace of electric vehicles. Amazon.com Inc. has said it plans to deploy a fleet of EVs, FedEx Corp. has started operating electric vans, and Tesla Inc. said it plans to deliver its first electric semi-trailer truck to PepsiCo Inc. next week. Uber Technologies Inc., which has struggled with its own driver shortage, is also making an EV push.

Chevy Bolt EVs are capable of going 259 miles on a single charge, and considering most stores only serve their local areas, the company thinks each car could last multiple days of deliveries without needing to plug in. GM has also slashed prices on the 2023 model down to a starting price of $26,595, making it one of the most affordable EVs on the market — even counting annoying dealership markups. Domino's partnered with Enterprise Fleet Management to take care of the purchasing, maintenance, and other logistics.

In a joint statement with Domino's, General Motors Fleet vice president Ed Peper said both companies were committed to "bettering our environment". He added that GM plans to eliminate tailpipe emissions from US light-duty vehicles by 2035. Domino's in 2019 test-launched a programme through which delivery drivers used custom electric bikes for deliveries to cut emissions and save on petrol costs. The company said the programme increased its hiring pool and improved overall delivery service.

Domino's has a website with a map where you can see when and where the new EV delivery vehicles are or will be active. Surprisingly, there aren't any active yet in EV heavy states like California, and none in Houston where Domino's has Nuro self-driving delivery cars currently in service.