My Uber driver sighed loudly—as he had been doing every half hour or so. Earlier, he had alerted me that this would be his longest drive yet as he verbally debated with himself whether to accept my ride request. I didn’t blame him. After all, it’s a 40-mile trek to Pittsburg, Calif., a northern suburb of San Francisco I hadn’t heard of before earlier that week. As heavy traffic forced us into a slow roll, it would end up taking nearly two hours before I saw a white, miniature autonomous aircraft hovering to my right off the side of the road—the first indication that we had finally arrived at drone startup Matternet’s testing site, albeit quite a bit later than I had expected.
When I apologized to the driver and stepped out of his sedan, there were a few drones taking off, landing, and zooming about the property, which is a former golf course the team converted into a drone site in July 2021. Matternet, the Mountain View, Calif.-based drone company that has been making drone deliveries with UPS since 2019, selected this location, seemingly off the beaten path, for its clear weather, moderate wind, and smaller population, though it’s also a commute for people who stop by—and for some of its staffers.
