Uber launches new design for the Uber Eats Delivery Drone
Uber Eats and Uber Elevate will offer dinner for two via drone starting next summer in San Diego. Unveiled at last week's Forbes Under 30 Summit in Detroit, the delivery drone design features six rotors, rotating wings, and can carry a meal for two within its body. Although the drone's maximum travel time remains relatively short (eight minutes including loading and unloading), it is capable of covering a distance of 30 kilometers, split into three legs of 10 kilometers each (from the charging point to the restaurant, from the restaurant to the customer, and back to base).
The current plan involves flying from restaurants to a staging location, where an Uber driver covers the last mile to deliver to the consumer. However, with an eye on the future of automated last-mile delivery, Uber is also exploring the idea of landing drones on the rooftops of delivery vehicles.
It is quite likely that we will soon begin to witness the commercialization of autonomous drones for everything from food and Amazon product deliveries to humanitarian aid. If the technology takes off, we can expect two major impacts:
- A sharp decline in human hiring for delivery roles
- An increase in human hiring for drone maintenance and programming
UPS and CVS deliver medication by drone for the first time
This week, UPS announced that its drone delivery subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward, completed its first two medication deliveries to consumers in Cary, North Carolina. Both deliveries used the Matternet M2 drone system, now approved by the FAA (last month) for commercial use by UPS.
Although a remote operator remained on standby, both deliveries were fully autonomous. Upon reaching their destination, the drones hovered approximately 6 meters above each property to slowly lower packages by cable and winch to the ground. The announcement comes just one month after Flight Forward obtained its air carrier certification, which allows the company's drones to "fly over people at night and beyond the line of sight of operators."
To date, UPS and Matternet have focused primarily on healthcare deliveries, with more than 1,500 drone deliveries completed. The shift toward partnering with CVS and expanding into residential deliveries is another signal we are tracking, indicating that urban airspace, cargo traffic, and personalized deliveries are on the verge of significant change.
What new opportunities do you think will emerge when last-mile delivery is no longer tied to trucks and road transportation?
Adapted from Peter Diamandis