They will expand their coverage over the next five years:
Zipline has teamed up with a healthcare provider servicing the Intermountain Region in the US to deliver medicine to customers using its drones. The company has started doing drone deliveries to select Intermountain Healthcare patients in the Salt Lake Valley area. For now, it can only do drops for local communities within several miles of its distribution center. Zipline intends to add more centers over the next five years, though, so it can eventually expand beyond Salt Lake Valley and deliver medicine throughout Utah.
[...] Intermountain Healthcare patients in the Salt Lake Valley area can now sign up for Zipline deliveries. The company will then evaluate their eligibility based on their location, their yard size — its target delivery area must be at least two parking spaces big — and their surrounding airspace. Zipline's drones are six-foot gliders with a wingspan that's 10 feet long. These drones fly 300 to 400 feet above the ground, though they drop down to an altitude of around 60 to 80 feet to deliver packages outfitted with a parachute.
Pizza from the sky: maybe this could be the next delivery model for DoorDash?
Related Stories
Zipline's new drones release tethered mini-drones for precision package deliveries
Zipline is revealing its new drone delivery platform today that the company says is capable of making a 10-mile delivery in 10 minutes, precisely placing packages on small targets like a patio table or the front steps of a home.
The new drone, which Zipline calls the Platform 2 (P2) Zip, uses a system of wires that lets down the package inside a cute little mini-bus-looking container the company describes as a "delivery droid." The P2 Zip hovers more than 300 feet above the ground at the delivery point, keeping its blades and noise away from people (and trees and wires and buildings) to let down its tethered droid instead.
The droid has the ability to steer with propellers as it's coming down, then lands and softly drops its payload.
[...] Similar to Wing's newly announced delivery network, Zipline says its P2 can dynamically move from dock to dock to charge up as needed and be ready to take orders. P2 can travel up to 24 miles one way without a payload and up to 10 miles while carrying six to eight pounds of weight. In comparison, Wing's drone can carry about three pounds and is technically capable of up to 12 miles of flight one way.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday October 12 2022, @10:39PM (1 child)
Waiting for someone to hack the drones or the db with deliveries so they can pick up all the good stuff. If you can hijack the drone to drop all the morphine (etc) they would have it made.
Is there a reason this would be more efficient then just using trucks? I guess if there is a harsh winter etc with bad road access but in those conditions flying drones probably isnt a cakewalk either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2022, @01:04AM
The arguments I've heard for these kind of drone deliveries is they're good for rural areas, and for meds that need to get there very quickly, like temperature sensitive things that can't drive around all afternoon on a truck.