The world’s largest food delivery service, Uber is now planning to take it’s network sky high. Literally!
According to Bloomberg, Uber has plans to make food deliveries in the future using drones. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that the company is starting the pilot in San Diego as part of a wide-reaching commercial test program.
With this program, the company is seeking to minimise the time consumed in delivering food down to 30-minutes (a benchmark already set by McDonald’s).
The US Transportation Department has chosen 10 states, local and tribal governments, and a handful of companies, including companies like Alphabet Inc, FedEx Corp, Qualcomm Inc, Intel and Uber to work together on the commercial drone testing project.
This is the only thing on Uber’s table. Recently, Uber announced a partnership with NASA to take it’s “flying car’ concept to more serious levels.
This collaboration will strengthen relationships between both the agencies and also allow them to explore concepts and technologies related to urban air mobility (UAM) to ensure a safe and efficient system for future air transportation in populated areas.
As part of the deal, Uber will share its data with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to move the world closer to developing air traffic management systems for a world with flying cars.
Currently, testing of these cars has been stalled as one of its self-driving vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. On this, Khosrowshahi said that Uber would resume with the testing in “the next few months,” once the National Transportation Safety Board completes its investigation.
(The Quint is now on WhatsApp. To receive handpicked stories on topics you care about, subscribe to our WhatsApp services. Just go to TheQuint.com/WhatsApp and hit send)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)