DoorDash plans to launch drone deliveries in suburban Northern California areas soon, but the company will need additional approval to conduct outdoor testing at its Mission facility under new legislation authored by Supervisor Jackie Fielder.
DoorDash said it plans to initially launch its drone-powered delivery service in suburban Northern California locations in the coming months, as the San Francisco Business Times reports. The company says there are fewer obstacles in those areas for its six-rotor drones.
The aircraft will reportedly lower orders to customers using a winch, and DoorDash says early testing has produced average delivery times of under five minutes from restaurants to customers’ doors. Chipotle and Popeyes are among the first restaurant partners, according to a company news release.
DoorDash is currently building the drones at a roughly 40,000-square-foot research and development facility in the Mission, along with other Bay Area facilities. Per the Business Times, DoorDash has not disclosed the exact location of the R&D facility or how many drones it is producing, but Harrison Shih, head of DoorDash Air, said at a launch event Tuesday that the operation is expected to grow as the service expands.
“We’re making enough to get started right now, but absolutely we imagine that we’ll be scaling through 2027 to meet demand,” Shih said.
DoorDash has been pursuing autonomous delivery in the Bay Area for years, including testing small delivery robots on San Francisco sidewalks in 2017 before the city rejected the idea the following year over concerns that the devices obstructed pedestrians.
The company reportedly leased property at 1960 Folsom Street last August and has applied to change its permitted use from light manufacturing to “lab engineering,” according to an environmental review document filed with the San Francisco Planning Department, as the Business Times reports.
The property became the subject of a dispute last year when DoorDash sought to test delivery drones in its parking lot. As SFist reported at the time, the Teamsters Local 665 challenged the company’s plans, arguing that the testing did not qualify as laboratory use. The union also cited safety concerns and argued that the technology could eventually replace blue-collar jobs.
“Safety and privacy are shattered if unregulated delivery drones are allowed to fly around our city,” said Tony Delorio, principal officer for the Teamsters Union Local 665s, during public comment, via Mission Local. “Delivery drones that weigh the same amount as bowling balls hovering over San Francisco streets and neighborhoods at 50 to 100 feet high are not welcome.”
The San Francisco Board of Appeals ultimately rejected the union’s appeal to shut down outdoor testing.
According to Mission Local, the Board of Supervisors passed new legislation in December authored by Supervisor Jackie Fielder requiring DoorDash and other companies to obtain additional approvals for outdoor drone testing at production, distribution, and repair-zoned properties in the Mission, Dogpatch, and Potrero Hill areas over the next 18 months.
DoorDash will therefore still need to seek Planning Commission approval before conducting outdoor testing at the Mission site.
The Business Times reports that DoorDash is also considering a larger Bay Area manufacturing operation as it scales up production. The company is reportedly focused on building its drones domestically, with much of its current talent and operations centered in San Francisco.
“We have a pretty strong commitment to onshoring and figuring out how we can build this thing domestically,” Shih said.
The drone operation is part of DoorDash’s broader push into autonomous delivery technology in the Bay Area. Per the Business Times, the company’s all-electric delivery robot Dot is manufactured in Fremont, where the city agreed earlier this year to allow the robot to make deliveries on public streets.
DoorDash is also reportedly testing its delivery technology with drones made by other companies, including Alphabet-owned Wing, which is operating in the Atlanta area. Other companies are pursuing similar efforts, including Uber, which has partnered with South San Francisco-based Zipline on a drone delivery program, and Amazon, which has been operating its own Prime Air drone network since 2022.
Previously: DoorDash Wins Its Appeal to Test Food Delivery Drones in the Mission, and the Teamsters Aren’t Happy
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