Uber Drones Could Deliver Your Takeout By 2021: ‘We Need Flying Burgers’

Evie Fordham

Uber drones could deliver takeout meals by 2021 as the company that started out as a ride-sharing app expands to food delivery, electric scooters and more.

“We need flying burgers,” Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said at a company conference in May, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The 2021 date comes from a now-deleted job posting for a drone operations executive on Uber’s website that The WSJ inquired about.

UberEats drivers already deliver food ordered via app, but the delivery drones could present “numerous technical challenges and regulatory hurdles,” according to The WSJ.

However, the drones could fix one problem with human drivers — skimming fries out of a customer’s order like this UberEats driver in Melbourne, Australia, did.

Uber appears to be diversifying its offerings before a potential 2019 IPO that could value the company at $120 billion.

UberEats started in 2014 and has been a moneymaker for Uber. The exact amount of cash it is raking in is unknown, but its annual gross food sales puts it on track to reach $6 billion over a one-year period, with UberEats taking a chunk of gross sales.

Uber already has an “internal name” for its drone food delivery — UberExpress, according to The WSJ. The company anticipates five to 30-minute delivery times with the drones, Khosrowshahi said at the May conference.

Uber is testing its commercial drones in San Diego, reported The WSJ. It’s doing that as part of a federal program that Google parent company Alphabet and FedEx are also participating in. One noteworthy exception? Amazon, which was “snubbed” by the Department of Transporation’s 2018 program, reported The WSJ.

Amazon hopes to offer what it is calling “Amazon Air,” a program that will offer under-30-minute drone deliveries. There’s no start date for the program, but Amazon says that “we will deploy when and where we have the regulatory support needed to safely realize our vision.”

Follow Evie on Twitter @eviefordham.

Send tips to evie@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Click here for reuse options!
Copyright 2018 Daily Caller News Foundation