Zipline’s clients already include more than 4,700 hospitals, according to the article, as well as major brands like Walmart. A Panera executive even told CNBC they hope to test Zipline deliveries in Seattle next year, expecting they won’t cost the company any more than third-party delivery services:
The company said its zero-emission drones have now flown more than 70 million autonomous commercial miles across four continents and delivered more than 10 million products. The milestone 1 millionth delivery carried two bags of IV fluid from a Zipline distribution center in Ghana to a local health facility… Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton told CNBC that 70% of the company’s deliveries have happened in the past two years and, in the future, the goal is to do 1 million deliveries a day…
“We need to start using vehicles that are light, fast, autonomous and zero-emission,” Cliffton said. “Delivering in this way is 10 times as fast, it’s less expensive … and relative to the traditional delivery apps that most restaurants will be working with, we triple the service radius, which means you actually [get] 10 times the number of customers who are reachable via instant delivery.”
