The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show often has some odd one-off designs and weird concepts to showcase. Toyota flipped the dough on this year's show with a mobile pizza maker conceived out of a Tundra pickup truck and some pie-making expertise from Pizza Hut.
The Tundra Pie Pro is more than just a pizza-making machine on four wheels, though. It's powered by the latest-generation hydrogen fuel cell system out of the Toyota Mirai and includes cutting-edge robotics from Toyota's Texas neighbor Nachi Robotic Systems. With help from Pizza Hut, the Tundra Pie Pro can truly make a pizza from scratch. Without exhaust gasses from the truck interfering.
Toyota started with a Tundra SR5 pickup stripped down to its bare chassis, and then built it from the ground up, reassembling some parts and replacing others. The hydrogen fuel cell power unit from the Mirai was added in, using expertise from Toyota's commercial truck endeavors along the same fuel cell bent.
The truck's bed was converted entirely to a customized pizza factory with the Toyota Motorsport Technical Center as coordinator and with input from Pizza Hut and Nachi. Self-contained, the kitchen in the truck has a refrigerator for storing pies, two computer-guided robotic arms, and a portable high-efficiency conveyor oven. The entire kitchen is also electrically powered by the Tundra's hydrogen fuel cells.
The Tundra Pie Pro is capable of making a pizza in six to seven minutes. A robotic arm opens the refrigerator and removes the selected pre-made pizza, places it on the oven conveyor, and closes the refrigerator. The pizza goes through the conveyor oven at a pre-selected temperature and exits out the far end. Another robotic arm removes the finished product, places it on a cutting board, expertly slices it into six pieces, boxes it, and delivers it to a waiting customer.
The Pie Pro is currently serving pizzas to denizens of the SEMA show in Las Vegas.
Source: Toyota
