In the not too distant future, you will be able to order Uber Eats that will be delivered to you by drone, as the ride-sharing company announced a pilot with McDonald’s in San Diego.
Using a current commercial drone, Uber has been testing deliveries with the hamburger maker in the California city. Ultimately, it plans to create a custom drone (that looks like a mini cargo plane, above) for delivering food in a custom box (below).
Liz Meyerdirk, a senior director of business development at Uber, said she began using Uber Eats when she was pregnant and still loves that you can have food delivered in half an hour.
“That is phenomenal,” she told the Uber Elevate conference in Washington DC.
“We’ve been able to leverage that deep expertise of really understanding how the cities work and the deep power of our platform to do that.” But Uber, as it looks to the sky for transport, is also looking at how drones could help deliver food.
Uber Eats already brings new customers to restaurants with an estimated 29% of surveyed so-called millennials saying they order in from a restaurant.
“More eaters are helping restaurants reach more customers,” she says. “More customers and couriers can run faster, more efficient routes. And around and around the wheel we go.”
Uber wants to bring down food delivery times from 30 minutes to eight. Uber demonstrated what the process would look like:
Back to the future
The benefits are good for everyone, argues Fischer. “Drones can exponentially increase customers for all the restaurants in the area.” Meyerdirk says, “We think drone delivery presents a radical opportunity to extend this service. These are the first steps to turn that into reality”.
