#DeliveryServices

FedEx had kneeled before mankind, vowing to become a carbon-neutral business by 2040. That’s roughly eight years longer than it’ll probably take most of the population to forget that the promise was ever made. But this is the way of the world and we wager it won’t be long before it’s just easier to list the companies and governments that have not made informal, often empty commitments about the environment.

But, before we throw FedEx into the camp of blatant placation, let’s see what it actually has planned.

Uber Technologies eliminated an additional 3,000 jobs on Monday, closing offices around the world as certain regions revealed less growth than the outfit had hoped for. We covered the ride-hailing firm’s financial situation last week, as reports circulated that it wanted to drop a few billion to acquire Grubhub and enhance its own food-delivery service in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

At the time, the firm had already cut 3,700 jobs pertaining to customer support and human resources. Even in the absence of people shunning shared transportation and local governments forcing citizens to stay indoors, Uber’s preexisting inability to turn a profit would probably have forced the company to restructure eventually. The pandemic pinned the accelerator to the floor mat, however, likely forcing additional cuts by the company’s own admission. Considering Uber has already axed about a quarter of its global workforce, it’s probably time to place it on death watch.

Uber Technologies has reportedly made an offer to buy Grubhub — a food delivery service that links local restaurants directly to customers via a convenient app. Considering Uber Eats is as unprofitable as the company’s core ride-haling business, dropping a bunch of money to acquire a similar business seems silly… until you realize Grubhub is pretty much the only food-delivery outlet to occasionally turn a profit.

Buying up the only legitimate threat to your side business could be wise, even if it’s also somewhat monopolistic, but large, unprofitable tech entities with slick-sounding business plans and massive stock valuation seem bulletproof right now. They can buy up whatever outfits they want and nobody bats an eyelash until an isolated incident pops up that the media can temporarily harp on.

Even with the coronavirus rattling Uber’s share price in March, with ride frequencies more than halved in major metropolitan areas around the globe, its value crept back up in subsequent months. The company also enacted cost-cutting measures, eliminating 3,700 jobs and shuttering 180 driver service centers, with more cuts presumed to follow later this year. While dropping a few billion on Grubhub seems at odds with corporate thriftiness, it may prove beneficial in the long term — especially with investors heaping pressure on Uber to provide evidence it can someday become routinely profitable.

This outlet has frequently made light of Ford’s more imaginative mobility projects, but they’ve spanned the gamut in terms of functionality. While dressing up college students to resemble a car seat in order to test the public’s perception of autonomous vehicles was certainly funny, it also provided some meaningful R&D insight. Meanwhile, Carr-E and the automaker’s lane-keeping bed were little more than comic distractions, outperforming many of today’s hottest stand-up entertainers in terms of laughs per minute.

However, Ford’s latest project deserves to be taken more seriously. It’s both far more useful than what we’ve grown accustomed to and holds far broader implications for society.

The United Parcel Service said Tuesday it will purchase 125 all-electric semi trucks from Tesla, surpassing PepsiCo’s order to make it the largest known order for the vehicle thus far. While the purchase isn’t tantamount to UPS making a complete shift to an electric fleet, the company has previously stated it wants to convert up to 1,500 delivery trucks in New York to battery electric units and has been researching non-traditional powertrains for some time.

With so many of its trips taking place between distribution hubs, a medium-range EV truck boasting a high capacity could be a good fit for UPS. At the very least, Tesla seems to think so — the delivery service provided the automaker with extensive data on how its trucks function on real-world routes in order to evaluate how the hulking BEVs might perform in its fleet. Of course, the cooperative experience also helps both companies promote themselves as leaders in the green revolution.