Uber Eats plans for drone food deliveries straight to customers
Uber wants to deliver the food you order using a drone through its Uber Eats platform starting in San Diego this summer.
A restaurant would load a meal onto an Uber Eats drone where it will be delivered to the courier who will then drive it to the customer’s doorstep at a much faster pace.
“What we are trying to do is leverage Uber as a platform and use existing infrastructure that Uber Eats has,” Liz Meyerdirk, the head of global business development at Uber Eats, told FOX Business’ Suisan Li on Wednesday.
The ride-sharing company has partnered with McDonald’s and Juniper & Ivy, a San Diego restaurant.
Uber conducted test runs last month using an AR200 drone with a custom-designed payload box to deliver burgers and french fries from a local McDonald’s to the campus of San Diego State University. The box contained a seal to ensure the food ordered for delivery hasn’t been tampered.
Meyerdirk said Uber Eats plans to “crawl, walk, run” before expanding beyond the golden arches and other restaurant partners.
“We really want to get it right and so when we say get it right, there’s a component of working with the restaurant partners and making sure that the people know where to take the food and to put it in the boxes and the boxes are taken away by the couriers,” she said.
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Uber Eats has delivered $10 billion worth of food this year.