Secure delivery is a must. And not to the street or even front doorstep. Who has a front doorstep? Most folks live in an apartment building. How about delivery to the balcony? To the back porch? To a secure box at the curb? To wherever the receiver marks as their delivery spot?
Assuming there's somebody there to get it, and very promptly. Imagine the drone hovering there, battery draining, holding your dripping vindaloo and you're in the bathroom or bedroom with your sweetie and in no hurry to do any of the above.
Maybe secure delivery isn't hard for takeout, because usually somebody is hungry and wants it (usually). But UPS or Fedex happens when nobody's home. That's probably the better user story for secure delivery.
Don't pickup in 5 mins it just leaves. This is how the Uber model was before they changed to just,"Drivers billable time starts after 2 mins of waiting. Looks like they faired out alright as a company.
The food is only going to be, what, 10% of the weight of the vehicle? They'd be crazy to have battery margins low enough for the weight of the food to make a difference.
No, that's engineering. The battery is everything (most of the weight; large part of the cost). If the battery is even a little bigger than it needs to be, that's money out of their pocket (or less competitive prices).
This is definitely the case in Tallinn, Estonia - home of Starship - yet they only seem to cover a small area of the city. I had assumed that there still always was a human following each 'bot around.
