DETROIT — Ford Motor Company has unveiled plans to combine autonomous vans and delivery drones to transport goods directly to a customer’s doorstep. <br /> <br />Ford introduced the Autolivery concept at the 2017 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the International Business Times reported. <br /> <br /> <br />The concept is an electric self-driving van with deployable quadrocopter drones that can pick up and drop off packages at a person’s residence, according to Motor Trend. <br /> <br /> <br />In a demonstration video released by Ford, the process could start out with a customer placing an order through a mobile application. <br /> <br />Packages would then be loaded into compartments on the autonomous van. <br /> <br />Next, the Autolivery van would drive to the customer’s residence, where he or she could pick up the package from the van. <br /> <br />But if the customer needed a package delivered, the package would moved to the top of the van where on-board drones could access them. <br /> <br />The drones would then fly the package to the residence and drop them off at designated landing pads. <br /> <br />Ford envisions the end-to-end delivery service could be used for things such as online shopping orders, weekly groceries as well as medical supplies.
