Delivery

Delivering fresh food to someone's door is far from unusual, but delivering it by flying drone is another story entirely. A team of designers at Darwin Aerospace recently built the "Burrito Bomber," a UAV outfitted with a release mechanism and autopilot controls, so it can take food orders and air drop them at a person's location within minutes.  Read More

Pizza delivery usually depends on the delivery person’s own transport, but that may change in the near future. Domino’s Pizza and crowd-source automaker Local Motors have announced the winner in their "Ultimate Delivery Vehicle" contest, which aims at creating a dedicated, high-tech pizza van. After a six-week competition with over 200 entries. the winner of the initial design phase was Anej Kostrevic of Slovenia, who was awarded the US$10,000 prize first prize for his Domino's Pack delivery vehicle.  Read More

When Mini unveiled its Clubman-based Clubvan concept at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year, we fully expected that the vehicle would make the move from concept to production line - not only because it filled a growing niche for compact commercial delivery vehicles, but also because Mini has a recent history of taking its concept cars into production. True to form, the company has now announced three different Clubvan models that will be hitting showrooms later this year.  Read More

With most major pizza chains equipped with online ordering and smartphone apps, having a pizza delivered is faster and easier than ever before. But that still may not be quick enough if you get a craving for your favorite pizza from your favorite pizzeria. That may be why one Dubai-based pizza shop is making things even easier on its customers by offering Bluetooth-enabled refrigerator magnets that can place an order for delivery at the push of a button.  Read More

Smith Electric Vehicles has announced the start of production of a new electric walk-in delivery van developed in collaboration with Indiana-based Utilimaster. Incorporating Smith's proprietary drive and control, battery management and remote system monitoring technologies, the zero-emission Newton Step Van is said to offer a range of around 100 miles (160 km) on a single charge of its Lithium-ion batteries. The first company to deploy the new vehicle in the U.S. will be FedEx Express, the world's largest express transportation company.  Read More

Small-scale courier services, electricians, plumbers or any other professionals who depend on being able to drive through city streets for their livelihoods and need a generous helping of cargo space to boot, may well find the novel mia electric microvan a very good fit indeed. The mia U doesn't have anywhere near the storage space of Ford's trailblazer Transit Connect electric van that we featured in 2010, but it does have a similar battery range and speed, and places the driver right in the center of the action.  Read More

Although chemotherapy is an effective cancer treatment, it’s shotgun approach also damages healthy cells bringing debilitating side effects such as nausea, liver toxicity and a battered immune system. Now a new way to deliver this life-saving therapy to cancer patients by getting straight to the source of the disease has been developed. The researchers responsible for the breakthrough delivery vehicle liken it to a cluster bomb for cancer because of its ability to deliver the drugs directly into cancer cells before releasing its chemotherapeutic payload.  Read More

If you were a hybrid vehicle manufacturer, and you wanted to lower the world’s CO2 emissions, would you first...

• a) Try to replace all the privately-owned gas vehicles, that mostly just drive to and from workplaces, one vehicle at a time, or...
• b) Replace entire corporate fleets of gas delivery vehicles, that typically spend all day, every day, on the road?

Well, you’re supposed to answer “b”. That’s what Indiana-based Bright Automotive wants to do with their plug-in hybrid delivery van, the IDEA. And now that they’re close to signing a pact with an unnamed major automaker, they’re one step closer to realizing that vision.  Read More

Blood vessels that supply tumors are more porous than normal vessels, makes nanoscale drug delivery systems a particularly attractive prospect. If properly engineered, nanoparticles can in fact get inside a tumor, targeting it precisely and allowing much higher drug dosages as they reduce side effects to a minimum. Two recent studies featured in the latest issue of the journal Nature Materials specifically address these issues and give us promising leads in the fight against cancer.  Read More