By Jessica Dogo, Abuja.
Zipline, a company in South San Francisco, Californian the U.S., has unveiled its new platform that provides quiet, fast and precise autonomous delivery directly to homes in cities and suburbs.
The company did the unveiling virtually on Thursday.
The Chief Executive Officer of Zipline, Keller Cliffton, said that the company had spent the last several years for building and fine-tuning its next generation technology, Platform 2 (P2), to provide an optimal customer experience at scale.
He said that Zipline’s drones could fly more than 300 feet above the ground and were nearly inaudible, unlike other drone delivery services.
Cliffton said: “Over the last decade, global demand for instant delivery has skyrocketed, but the technology we are using to deliver is 100 years old.
“We are still using the same 3,000-pound, gas combustion vehicles, driven by humans, to make billions of deliveries that usually weigh less than five pounds.
“It is slow, it’s expensive, and it’s terrible for the planet.
“Our new service is changing that and will finally make deliveries work for you and around your schedule.
“We have built the closest thing to teleportation ever created – a smooth, ultra-fast, convenient, and truly magical autonomous logistics system that serves all people equally, wherever they are.”
The chief executive officer said that the new drone arrived at its destination safely and quietly at the altitude, while its fully autonomous delivery droid maneuvred down a tether.
Cliffton also said that it steered to the correct location and gently dropped off its package to areas as small as a patio table or the front steps of a home.
He said that Sweetgreen, the Government of Rwanda, Michigan Medicine and more would be a few of the first customers to deploy Zipline’s new platform.
He said that the partnership was to further its mission of connecting people to real food in the U.S., while moving a step closer to its pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2027.
“By ordering through Zipline’s marketplace, Sweetgreen customers can get their orders using 97-per-cent less energy than traditional automotive methods,” Cliffton said.
Jonathan Neman, Co-Founder and CEO of Sweetgreen, said that the future of delivery platform was faster and more sustainable, while creating broader access, all of which provided improved value for our customers.
“We could not be more excited to work with Zipline to complement our delivery strategy.
“Zipline’s sustainable technology and ability to reach customers quickly, with a great delivery experience, will help us give our customers what they want, when they want it,” he said.
