(Bloomberg) – Mercedes-Benz is looking at mountingautomated flying drones onto a new line of electric vansas part of a 500 million-euro ($562 million) investment aimed atspeeding delivery times for online orders.

The small pilotless aircraft would be part of a suite ofon-board systems, including digital sorting equipment, that couldcut both costs and delivery times in half for the final portion ofa package's journey, the carmaker said Wednesday at a presentationin Stuttgart, Germany. The two drones can each fly items weighingas much as 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) as far as 10 kilometers (6miles), enabling service to difficult-to-reach to places.

Speed product transport

The concept is among the Daimler AG unit's efforts to helpcorporate customers speed product transport as volumes rise becauseof the boom in electronic commerce. Deutsche Post AG's DHLdivision and United Parcel Service Inc. are also looking at how toensure items are delivered on the first attempt even when theconsumer isn't home. Online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. areexperimenting with handling deliveries themselves.

"The business in our sector is changing dramatically, so we'relooking far beyond our core product and getting into new markets,"Volker Mornhinweg, who heads Mercedes's vans business, said in astatement. "We want to make vans an intelligent, connected datacenter on wheels."

The investments will be spaced over five years. Mercedes didn'toutline a time frame for when the drones or technologies like arobotic arm for sorting parcels inside the van might becomecommercially available.

Regulatory structure in infancy

Many industries are researching potential uses of drones beyonddropping the latest internet shopping on people's doorsteps, suchas railroad-track inspections, spotting criminalson the run or organ delivery for hospitals, though a regulatorystructure for the aircraft is still in its infancy.

"The growth in transportation means we have to change ourprocesses accordingly," said Stefan Maurer, head of Mercedes'sfuture transport systems for vans.

The drones on the Mercedes concept are fixed to the van's roofabove a hatch that opens to the vehicle's inside. Made of carbonfiber and aluminum, the mini-copters with four propellers measureabout 55 centimeters (22 inches) across. The aircraft weredeveloped jointly with Menlo Park, California-based partnerMatternet, and similar models have already helpedcarry medicine to people in difficult terrain, Mercedes said.

When a van reaches the area where the drone is supposed to takeoff, a robotic arm in the cargo area moves parcels inside a specialbox to the hatch, which opens automatically for the drone to pickup the item. Using GPS, the aircraft flies to a landing spot set bythe customer, Mercedes said.

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