Uber Will Soon Use Drones to Deliver Your Takeout Order
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane— no, it’s your sushi order flying right to your doorstep. On Wednesday, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced plans to make its food delivery service faster by testing drones that will fly takeout orders directly to the customer.
As part of a new initiative for commercial drone testing, the US Department of Transportation approved Uber’s plans to test food delivery by drone in San Diego. Uber plans on being able to make food deliveries by drone in under 30 minutes, Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg. The DOT also approved drone projects from several other companies (including Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., Intel and FedEx), as well as 10 states, local and tribal governments to work together on commercial drone testing.
Khosrowshahi made the drone project announcement at a conference about the company’s flying car project: Uber Elevate. He told the crowd at the conference that Uber has become the largest food delivery business in the world. Currently, its food delivery service, Uber Eats, operates in more than 30 countries, outgrowing its ride-hailing taxi service in some cities around the world, Business Insider reports. Uber has not yet confirmed when the drone delivery test program will begin.
Recently, Uber has paused testing on another one of its development projects: its self-driving vehicles. The autonomous cars are being investigated following a software malfunction incident in which a car failed to recognize a pedestrian, and she was struck and killed. Khosrowshahi said that Uber would resume with the testing in “the next few months,” once the National Transportation Safety Board completes its investigation.
H/T: Bloomberg
Photo courtesy Uber.
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