New delivery drones can carry five-pound boxes
Technology
Walmart, Google parent company Alphabet will soon be flying much larger drones
(Web Desk) - A week after Walmart announced it was expanding its drone delivery programme in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Google parent Alphabet is showing off a bigger drone (or plane, as the company sometimes calls them).
Wing, the Alphabet subsidiary that handles its autonomous drone fleet, revealed an unnamed new model on Wednesday that's about 50% larger than its previous planes, and is capable of carrying packages weighing as much as five pounds.
According to the company, 30% of its current drone deliveries have to be split across multiple planes due to weight.
"To better serve that 30% and further optimize our business, we will be introducing an additional aircraft to complement our existing fleet," Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said in a post on the company's website.
Woodworth told The Messenger that, aside from the increased capacity, the new drone's performance would largely reflect the existing model's.
That means it'll boast a round-trip range of 12 miles and a top speed of 65 mph.
However, the drone will be updated to be able to carry standard, square packages, whereas current models can only ferry around stiff, trapezoidal bags, which have a lower volume.
Woodworth also clarified that customers won't see the new drone for a while —it's currently entering production, but should be in operation "within 12 months."
The CEO is optimistic about what the addition means for the company. "When you get to a point where you're stable and you can optimize like this, you know the demand for drone delivery is real."
The Messenger got to see the drone in person at a closed-door event in New York City, and it's certainly spiffy.
Sitting next to it was an example package and an example order, all of which could be carried in one trip. The order was a mock delivery for a sick customer: Campbell's chicken noodle soup, Emergen-C supplement packets, a medium-sized bottle of Mucinex, a large bottle of Pedialyte and a box of Ritz Crackers.
Wing's bread and butter is these kinds of emergency deliveries, the company said at the event.
Woodworth bragged that the company is now capable of delivering goods in under ten minutes, given optimal conditions.
How the new plane will be implemented into the end user experience depends on partners like Walmart, which Wing representatives said may choose to charge higher fees depending on delivery weight.
