With the coronavirus impacting lives across the world, Chinese automaker Geely has devised a new way to get cars to customers without having to have those customers physically interact with anyone. The cars are purchased online, on what Geely calls an online mall, and are then completely disinfected prior to delivery.

Geely then loads the car on a flatbed and hauls it to the customer. Now, here’s where the system gets really interesting: Geely has one of its employees deliver the keys to the new owner by way of a drone. This might sound odd, but it lowers the risk of an infectious disease spreading to either the customer or the sales staff through the car buying process.

The downside? It doesn’t seem like the most efficient way to deliver a car. Geely claims to have delivered just over 10,000 vehicles this way since the system was put in place in February. The system also relies on dealers that are near the customer, since they're responsible for preparing and delivering the car.

Since new car sales in dealerships are effectively verboten in a handful of states, this might be something for enterprising American retailers to consider for folks who don’t want to head to a dealer to take delivery of a car in the future.

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