DoorDash is making its own drones

 

Look, up in the sky! It’s not a bird or a plane…it’s a drone carrying your burrito. The company that lets you order takeout with just a few clicks because calling a restaurant is too much effort is now refining even more sophisticated tech for its new drone delivery business, DoorDash Air.

The US’ largest delivery company said yesterday that it received a certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate a commercial drone delivery service. However, DoorDash doesn’t expect to launch these deliveries until the fall.

If you want futuristic food delivery before then, you’ll need to be in one of the locales where DoorDash currently partners with Alphabet’s Wing or Flytrex—partnerships the company said it will keep even as it becomes a competitor.

DoorDash plans to pull off an act of coordination even more complicated than getting your whole family to agree on which restaurant to order from. It aims to use its software edge and build “the full stack” to facilitate drone deliveries, including ground infrastructure and handoff systems.

Why drones? Like DoorDash’s delivery robot Dot, the drones are intended to cut costs per delivery, as well as speed them up, especially three- to five-mile trips, which the company said typically take 25% longer than shorter trips, in part because finding human delivery people takes time.—AR

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