Latest news with #droneDelivery
Telegraph
17 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Takeaway culture is out of control – when did we become so entitled and lazy?
I consider myself to be a law-abiding citizen. But sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, maybe even take up arms and defend yourself and those you love against an existential threat. The news that Deliveroo has launched its first drone delivery service in Dublin, so we can eventually all get even fatter and poorer without leaving the house, is just such a moment in time. Which is why I'm in the market for a high-energy laser weapon. Nothing fancy – just enough firepower to take out the takeout, shoot down the poke bowl and incinerate those horrid, claggy barbecue chicken wings. The truth is, I loathe takeaway culture to begin with. The idea that food, groceries and bottles of wine are being flown over my home, over my head, makes me apoplectic. Did anyone ask permission for my airspace to be co-opted for the safe passage of a lukewarm McDonald's to Number 24? No they did not. And who will be in charge of directing the drone traffic? One midair crash and those nachos and guacamole will take someone's eye out. Deliveroo, like its rivals Uber Eats and Just Eat, began as a delivery service for hot food. You ordered online and within half an hour or so, a miserable-looking driver or cyclist would pitch up with dinner. It felt quite glamorous to start with, a cheeky Friday night treat in a thrilling brown paper carrier. Now, it's become a national obsession; I know of households where they order takeaways most nights. Figures from Deliveroo show that in my London borough, Hackney, the most-ordered grocery item is Co-op Sea Salt Crisps, whereas in Kensington and Chelsea it's kimchi from Whole Foods. In Tower Hamlets the Sainsbury's lunchtime meal deal reigns supreme. How did we reach the point in civilisation where people are too entitled and lazy to get up off the sofa and fetch their own sodding crisps? Who suffers from a late night kimchi emergency? And what sort of nutter is willing to spend a small fortune ordering coffee and a pricey Danish every morning when they could, oh I don't know; buy a jar of coffee and a pack of croissants in the supermarket? I've got a kettle, baked goods and a cupboard devoted to spices, including a grinder. But what happens when my daughters feel peckish? They order in. Secretly. Why? Because it is an insult to my cooking, unhealthy and expensive and I will absolutely lose it if I find out. The elder one has a job so I can't really stop her. When I refuse to give the younger one cash… her boyfriend orders it and sends it round to the house. Multiply that by every Gen Zer on my residential road and I can foresee squadrons of irritating drones buzzing about all hours of the day and night. Which is why I need to take action. The only issue is that I don't know how to lay my hands on a high-energy laser weapon. Don't judge me, but I wonder if Deliveroo does them...
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Meituan to Expand Drone Delivery Routes Over Dubai Marina
By and Stephen Engle Save Meituan is expanding its drone delivery service in Dubai as part of an ambitious overseas push. The Beijing-based company will launch two to three new routes for drone delivery in the emirate in the second half of the year with the potential to add more, Vice President Yinian Mao told Bloomberg News in an interview Thursday.
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Walmart Boosts Drone Deliveries in Effort to Speed Up Orders
Walmart Inc. is adding drone delivery in five new cities in a bid to expand online sales and get goods to shoppers faster. The world's largest retailer will start offering drone service at 100 stores across Charlotte, North Carolina; Tampa, Florida; Atlanta; Houston and Orlando, building on existing operations in northwest Arkansas and Dallas-Fort Worth. Walmart said it's the first retailer to scale drone delivery in five states.
Fast Company
a day ago
- Automotive
- Fast Company
Walmart is planning a major expansion of its drone delivery service with Wing. Here's where it will land next
Our sky-mall future is officially here: Walmart and drone company Wing are rolling out drone delivery to a number of additional metro areas in what the companies are calling 'the world's largest drone delivery expansion' ever. The service will be available for Walmart customers in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa by mid-year 2026, the companies said Thursday. The announcement means that more than 100 Walmart stores in those cities will be folded into its Wing delivery partnership, including the 18 Supercenters in the Dallas area, where the two companies have already sent customer orders flying. 'Drone delivery is already real for millions of people in places like Dallas-Fort Worth, Wing CEO Adam Woodworth tells Fast Company. 'We're excited to make it real for more people than ever before.' Identified flying objects Business-to-consumer drone delivery still felt like far-off proposition not that long ago, but the market is poised to explode. A recent report from PwC estimated that $251 million worth of goods were delivered globally to consumers by drone last year, a number that could reach $65.2 billion in 2034. Walmart does not have the U.S. skies all to itself. Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, famously introduced the idea of drone delivery to American viewers on a 2013 episode of 60 Minutes, has set a goal of delivering 500 million packages a year via drone by the end of the 2020s. Walmart first launched drone delivery with Wing in fall 2023, and it works in a fairly simple way: Customers place an order with Walmart (or through Wing's marketplace, or a third-party service such as DoorDash), and select drone delivery, while specifying an exact delivery location. The drone is loaded up with a customer's order, takes off, and travels up to 65 miles per hour to the location. In all, customers can receive their orders much faster than through other delivery methods, as the drones can cut across the sky, avoiding traffic and other obstacles. 'We find drone delivery takes off in more densely populated areas where people rely on personal cars,' says Woodworth, such as sprawling cities like Dallas. 'Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida offer some of the same advantages Wing and Walmart have seen in Texas, with a real appetite from customers and government partners ready and excited to work with us and bring drone delivery to their communities.' Walmart's leadership is likewise excited about the expansion. 'As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail,' said Greg Cathey, Walmart's senior vice president of U.S. transformation and innovation, in a statement. 'We're pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before.'
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WIRED
a day ago
- Business
- WIRED
Walmart Goes Big With Drone Delivery Expansion
Aarian Marshall Paresh Dave Walmart, with its partner Wing, plans to bring drone delivery to 100 new stores in five new US cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. For nearly two years, Alphabet's drone company, Wing, has managed deliveries for a handful of Walmart locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Customers in the metro region can click 'checkout' on a small order on Walmart's website or app and, within an average delivery window of 19 minutes, see a drone buzz above their lawn or backyard and lower a delivery box on a tether. Now both companies say the service is ready for serious expansion. They announced Thursday that Wing's drone delivery service will roll out to 100 additional US stores in the next year, including Walmart locations in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. The companies say the expansion will give 'millions' of homes access to drone delivery within 30 minutes or less, making the drone delivery network the largest in the country. The expansion will test shoppers' enthusiasm for super-quick deliveries—and communities' interest in sharing airspace with a new kind of delivery vehicle. It will also likely help both companies analyze the commercial viability of drone delivery services, which have rolled out to a handful of areas across the world—including northwest Arkansas, metro Raleigh, North Carolina, and Lockeford, California, plus parts of Australia, Finland, Ireland, and Rwanda—but have yet to transform how global consumers think about quick delivery. Some critics who have studied the drone industry doubt routine deliveries can become truly profitable. 'It's unlikely that it will become commercially viable in the foreseeable future,' says Matthias Winkenbach, who directs research at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics and has written about the industry. He cites regulatory hoops, the high costs of employing drone pilots, and the challenges of working in unpredictable situations with unpredictable people—namely, customers' homes and customers themselves. Plus, he says, it's hard to beat the efficiency and price of a 'good old UPS truck.' Wing says it will use what it's learned about drone delivery rollouts in Dallas to quickly bring its services to other cities starting in the coming months. In that region, 18 stores are equipped with 18 drones each. Together, they deliver about 1,000 orders per day, says Adam Woodworth, the CEO of Wing. Top deliveries include baby wipes and eggs, he says, plus the items a person might not normally get delivered but want right now: a pint of milk because the kid wants a glass, or a forgotten recipe ingredient. At most stores, Wing workers pick, pack, and deploy drone orders; the plane-like drones, which have a five-foot wingspan, can carry packages weighing up to 5 pounds. Parts of Dallas have access to drone deliveries of a broad selection of items for a fee of $20 per shipment, which is discounted to free for members of the $98-a-year Walmart+ program. A limited selection of items—generally priced no differently than in Walmart's stores—are available to all customers for free delivery from Wing's app. In initial expansion locations, only the latter option of ordering through Wing's app will be available. The Walmart drone delivery orders are picked, packed, and deployed by Wing workers. Courtesy of Wing/Walmart Walmart's US drone deployments, which include a more recent Dallas-area partnership with drone logistics and delivery company Zipline and now-shuttered work with the company DroneUp, have been met with little protest or fanfare. But a similar drone deployment by Amazon's Prime Air in College Station, Texas, riled up neighbors, WIRED has reported, who complained about noise, worried about surveillance, and fretted over the drones' possible effects on local wildlife. Amazon temporarily suspended deliveries in Texas and another site in Arizona after two drones fell from the sky during December test flights. And last month, a drone landed askew in someone's front yard. No one was hurt in the incidents, and Amazon is still operating drone delivery in Texas and Arizona, with launches in San Antonio and Richardson, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri forthcoming. Wing's drones are lighter than those used by Amazon, and Woodworth says Walmart stores' neighbors will be hard pressed to even spot them in the sky. He says the company has seen a 'handful' of precautionary landings in 'preferred' safe spots like trees during its service in Dallas, but says they have 'largely been non-events.' The company's drones are 'inherently safe,' he says. 'We've seen that the architectural decisions that we've made early on have paid off in the operational reliability.' It's no accident, though, that the drone service expansion is across relatively warm and temperate metros. Drones do not perform dependably in extreme weather, and if their batteries get very cold, they need to be warmed back up again. Service is faster and more reliable in places with better weather, says Woodward. A Wing drone carrying a Walmart delivery. Courtesy of Wing/Walmart Drones are regulated in the US by the Federal Aviation Administration, but Woodworth says Wing has worked with municipalities in the expansion areas to clarify where and how the company can build its drone infrastructure, which he calls 'lightweight.' In April, the FAA authorized Wing to deliver from 7 am to 10 pm up to 30,000 times daily in the Dallas area and as many as 10,000 in the Charlotte region. How does this all pencil out? Woodworth declined to comment on Wing's business model, and says that the financial arrangements differ across delivery partners. (Wing is also working with DoorDash in Australia, and medical logistics firm Apian and the UK National Health Service to transport blood between hospitals in London.) Generally, though, he says Wing sees a future where it takes a delivery fee cut from each transaction. In an emailed statement, Walmart innovation executive Greg Cathey called drone delivery a 'key part of our commitment to redefining retail.'
