Dealership Uses Drones To Deliver Oil Filters In Under 2 Minutes Jack Demmer Ford's metro Detroit pilot moves 7.6-pound parts within a 12-mile radius to cut traffic delays for repair customers. - Jack Demmer Ford moved its drone pilot into live runs, delivering small parts across a 12-mile metro Detroit radius. - blueflite provides a tiltrotor drone that can fly autonomously or piloted and includes a parachute. - Michigan's Advanced Air Mobility grant gave $740,000, with Jack Demmer adding $117,500. Jack Demmer Ford's parts counter in Wayne, Michigan, now has an aircraft on call. The dealership group has moved its drone delivery pilot out of test mode and into live commercial runs, ferrying oil filters and other small parts across metro Detroit instead of routing them through traffic. Jack Demmer Automotive Group built the network with drone firms blueflite and Airspace Link, backed by a $740,000 grant from Michigan's Advanced Air Mobility Activation Fund. The goal is simple: get a part to a technician faster than a driver stuck at a red light. Gallery: Blueflite tiltrotor drone Ford Drone Parts Delivery In Detroit The service covers a 12-mile radius around Jack Demmer Ford dealerships in the Ann Arbor to Detroit corridor, a footprint the companies say lets them reach multiple service points without staging a truck at each one. State paperwork puts the total project cost at $857,372, with Jack Demmer Ford kicking in $117,500 on top of the state's contribution. Early flights carried genuinely small cargo, oil filters among them, built around a 7.6-pound payload limit on a drone that tops out at 55 pounds fully loaded. One documented run near Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant took under two minutes and paused mid-flight rather than cross over moving vehicles below it, which tells you more about the operating discipline than