Uber Technologies Inc. plans to deliver food by drone in San Diego as part of a wide-reaching commercial test program approved by the federal government on Wednesday, said Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive officer. The company also decides to work with U.S. Army and the NASA on building flying cars to more serious levels with a goal of launching pilot programs in 2020. Customers can expect food delivery in five to 30 minutes from a drone or a human.
The Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is now promising, “Push a button and get food on your doorstep”, as he announced to the crowd at an Uber conference in Los Angeles adding that, Uber is already the world’s largest food delivery business. UberEats was launched in 2014 to partner with restaurants on food delivery, and drones are the latest idea to improve the efficiency of delivery.
The drone activity which is regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation had chosen 10 states, local and tribal governments and a handful of companies, which include Alphabet, FedEx, Intel and Qualcomm, to work with commercial drone testing. The test program will gather data from the partnerships for two and a half years, according to NPR.
The governments hosting the projects on a pilot basis are San Diego; North Carolina; Topeka, Kansas; Reno; Fairbanks, Alaska; the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma; Virginia; North Dakota; Memphis; and Lee County Mosquito Control District in Florida, as per Bloomberg. Each particular place has its own targets for drone delivery. The selling point of services has always been that it is a speedy way to get lunch or dinner, but orders in this new test service will arrive rapidly fast.
Testing of drone for food delivery will be interesting, particularly for the technology that could reduce the delivery times and cut down on car traffic. Khosrowshahi adds that UberEats growth has been massive in its two-and-a-half-year history, but it would be foolish to imagine this part of the company to slow down soon. “Uber can’t just be about cars. It has to be about mobility”.
Watch a Video of Uber’s plans on delivering food via drones:
