By CRM staff
Toronto, Ontario — November 1, 2018 — This week, Collision Repair has some pretty unbelievable news stories to share with you, starting with an innovative truck on display at SEMA that makes pizzas, a sinkhole that swallowed a Toronto transit vehicle, and much much more!
Pizza Making Machine
Pizza Hut has teamed up with Toyota to integrate an automated robotic pizza oven into the bed of a Toyota Tundra. The Tundra PIE Pro is being shown at SEMA this week. The zero-emission pickup has a robot in the back making pizzas. The way it works is simple: the robot’s arms first pull out a preassembled pizza from the mini-refrigerator, then place the pizza onto a high-speed, ventless conveyor oven. Then a second robot arm transfers the finished pie onto a cutting board, divides the pizza into six pieces, and slides it into a pizza box. The Verge reported that the whole process takes around six to seven minutes. A representative from Pizza Hut explained the reasoning behind this creation – “the more they can get closer to their homes or the point of delivery, the better it the product will be.”
Extra cup holders are cool. But can your truck make pizza? Introducing the @Toyota Tundra PIE Pro: https://t.co/Y1Eqehw2H3 #SEMA2018 pic.twitter.com/uK1kJz6cVu
— Pizza Hut (@pizzahut) October 30, 2018
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/30/18039910/pizza-hut-toyota-tundra-pie-pro-sema
Sinkhole Swallows Vehicle
A Toronto transit agency’s vehicle was swallowed by a sinkhole following a water main break on Tuesday morning. The incident was caught on video by CP24 showing the vehicle stuck in the water before falling into the sinkhole. Luckily there was no one in the vehicle at the time and no one was injured. By 7 a.m. the vehicle was almost completely submerged in the hole, with only a peak of the trunk showing.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/captured-on-camera-sinkhole-swallows-vehicle-in-toronto-1.4155513
Road Rage Gone Too Far
A 38-year-old driver in Gatineau has been arrested for allegedly firing a gunshot at a stranger in another vehicle in a fit of road rage. The targeted driver drove away but the gunman didn’t take no for an answer. The gunman turned up again on foot and approached the vehicle. Not knowing what the assailant was going to do, the driver rammed into him. The gunman was then taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/gatineau-road-rage-shooting-1.4885729
Remote Control Teslas?
Elon Musk has tweeted that within the next 6 weeks Telsas will have a feature he refers to as Smart Summon. “With Smart Summon, your car will navigate more complex environments and parking spaces, maneuvering around objects as necessary to come find you,” Tesla said. The new feature will allow owners to have their vehicles drive around a parking lot, find an empty spot and read parking signs. It will work on Teslas made in the past two years. The upgrade will enable owners to operate their vehicles remotely, like a big remote controlled car, as long as it remains within the line of sight, Musk also said.
https://electrek.co/2018/11/01/tesla-remotely-control-car-phones-like-rc-cars-elon-musk/
“Look, No Hands”
Journalists took a ride in the Canadian self-driving car engineers from the University of Waterloo are working on. A modified Lincoln MKZ Hybrid is rigged with cameras, computers, sensors and software, developed by researchers at the university’s Centre for Automotive Research. Carlos Wang, one of the engineers involved with the creation was sitting behind the wheel, but not actually touching it. He demonstrated the obstacles the vehicle is capable of avoiding right now — in this case, a bale of hay. Then the vehicle demonstrated the ability to keep driving straight while avoiding an oncoming car in the next lane. Finally, it the vehicle demonstrated how it could safely make a left turn at an intersection, after waiting for an oncoming vehicle to pass by. In this past year the group has driven the vehicle more than 100 km through city streets. Although the car seems ready to go, engineers said they still have plenty of years of research to go before it’s safe for consumers to own and drive.
