For the past week, we’ve been waiting for Alphabet’s Project Wing to begin its bold burrito initiative: delivering tortilla-wrapped goodness by drone. Now, Alphabet and Chipotle have started testing the service at Virginia Tech and onsite reporters are tweeting their impressions.
Most of it is as you’d expected. There’s a drone, and it’s delivering burritos. But receiving those airborne burritos doesn’t come cheap.
Chipotle says that this is a “unique test” and “everything about it is unique to this program.” However, it would seem that pricing is a point of interest as it’s the subject of several questions on a subsequent user survey.
It also looks like you get a free hat for filling out a survey.
Obviously, this isn’t what drone delivery will look when its ready for the big time. Roanoke Times reporter Jacob Demmitt says the drone takes the same route over and over again, and there are safety nets everywhere. So let’s call it an elaborate PR stunt and leave it at that. But the argument that drone delivery would significantly cut back on costs doesn’t seem to be holding up, at least not for the customer.
At least you get some free chips and guacamole in the drone-delivering future.