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Zipline Drone Delivery Is Flying High In Texas
Courtesy of Zipline
California-based drone-delivery startup Zipline — famous for facilitating autonomous medical deliveries across Africa over the past decade — rolled out in areas of Texas last year with food delivery.
Why It Soars: Tech giants like Amazon and Alphabet have been trying to get drone deliveries off the ground for years, but have run into a myriad of regulatory, technological, and cultural issues. Zipline’s success in Texas has not only positioned it as a market leader — it may also prove that the future of takeout really could come from the skies.
Between The Flights: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s your burrito!
Zipline drones, dubbed the “P2,” have five motors that allow them to seamlessly transition from vertical to horizontal flight — meaning the drone can hover to pick up your food, fly to your house like a traditional aircraft, and then hover again to drop off your meal.
They fly higher than a typical drone (cutting down on noise pollution), are packed with sensors to avoid nearby aircraft, and have a range of 24 miles — just far enough to ensure your food is still hot when it arrives.
The key innovation of the drone is its “Zip”: a retractable, tethered compartment that “has room for an eight-pound payload roughly the size of a breadbox,” per The Verge. It even includes a propeller to stabilize itself in strong winds.
Pickups happen at designated “Zipping Points” — white kiosks where retail workers load deliveries for the drones to collect. They can be deployed almost anywhere that isn’t blocked from above by a structure or tree.
Last Mile: The Verge notes that Zipline boasts a strong safety record after a cumulative two million deliveries and 125 million miles flown. That track record helped the startup secure a recent $600 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $7.6 billion. Name brands like Chipotle, Walmart, and Buffalo Wild Wings are already available to order through Zipline’s app — which costs about the same as ordering through DoorDash or Uber Eats.
Next up, the company plans to expand into new cities like Houston and Phoenix. So, it may only be a matter of time before we can get our own burrito flown straight to our front door.
Next Order: To avoid another New Jersey-style drone scare, cities may need to create PSAs educating residents before drone deliveries take off in their area. Dropping a few coupons wouldn’t hurt, either.
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PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited, Polled, & Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.