The margins aren’t there yet
Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
111–120 of 228 posts
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 is surprising as that’s the opposite of where I’d expect delivery drones to be useful. You don’t need them in dense urban environments where a stocked truck offloads inventory with low mileage. You want them in rural areas where as the crow flies makes a difference and it’s expensive to have a truck driving about sparsely populated areas.
The thing that makes rural areas inefficient for trucks (distance between customers) is far worse for drones. Drones have to be based out of somewhere close to the customer due to their short battery life, which means you have to have a lot of bases, each of which only serves a handful of customers. A truck will burn a lot of fuel per customer, but a single one can still serve a large area on one tank and can be base…
A truck will burn a lot less fuel per kg of cargo. That's because it is carrying many packages at once and fuel consumption is split across all packages. A drone only carries one package. So in reality a truck is a way more efficient way of delivering good.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#113Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#114it was determined that the drones created too much wind, worsening the global airspeed crisis. hard to justify them after that.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 is surprising as that’s the opposite of where I’d expect delivery drones to be useful. You don’t need them in dense urban environments where a stocked truck offloads inventory with low mileage. You want them in rural areas where as the crow flies makes a difference and it’s expensive to have a truck driving about sparsely populated areas.
The issue there is that the battery tech to support long distance delivery drones does not exist yet.
Now I’m imagining a larger, fixed-wing loitering drone carrying the package(s) and a small last-mile drone that detaches, drops its payload at the destination and then returns to the mothership.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#116delivery of drugs across flood ravaged infrastructure, or for temporary wifi/cell antenna (ruinously costly in battery life) -check.
checking wildlife with lower impact, finding wildlife and feral animals and lost hikers -check
taking aerial photos for weddings and documentaries -check
routine, bladerunner-esque floods of drones sending me parcels.. un-checked.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that makes rural areas inefficient for trucks (distance between customers) is far worse for drones. Drones have to be based out of somewhere close to the customer due to their short battery life, which means you have to have a lot of bases, each of which only serves a handful of customers. A truck will burn a lot of fuel per customer, but a single one can still serve a large area on one tank and can be base…
A truck will burn a lot less fuel per kg of cargo. That's because it is carrying many packages at once and fuel consumption is split across all packages. A drone only carries one package. So in reality a truck is a way more efficient way of delivering good.
Seems like the best compromise is something like the "drone spitter" delivery trucks from Ready Player One.
The truck wouldn't need to slow down (let alone stop), multiple drones would give high utilization, and you could further optimize delivery routes by "crow flying" to houses that aren't even on the same street.
https://www.inverse.com/article/43043-ready-player-one-drone...
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#118I don't remember where, but I read a lengthy comment from someone in the industry which said there were two main things preventing delivery drones from being a viable market: 1. FAA regulations - delivery drones can't operate within X miles of an airport (technically they can, but it requires a much stricter degree of certification and compliance nobody wants to bother with) 2. Drones need a landing space, so people…
1 is a bit surprising. It’s not like housing around airports are particularly popular for noise reasons. Here in Seattle, if you don’t count float planes, we don’t even have general aviation airports to worry about until you hit Boeing field to the south and Paine field in the north (again Boeing related).
Most new town homes have rooftop decks (because Seattle doesn’t get much snow), why can’t they land on those?
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to see someone try integrating them into the delivery trucks. Roof mount it, make it easy to load from the back storage area, and have it auto charge. That way drivers can choose to hand off smaller packages to it and launch when they are delivering close by.
Where have I seen this before? https://wiki.factorio.com/Personal_roboport
And the 'drone spitter' USPS vans in the Ready Player One film.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 is surprising as that’s the opposite of where I’d expect delivery drones to be useful. You don’t need them in dense urban environments where a stocked truck offloads inventory with low mileage. You want them in rural areas where as the crow flies makes a difference and it’s expensive to have a truck driving about sparsely populated areas.
I saw a demo recently where they had a drone flying high and it zip-lined a package down to the destination directly below it, so the drone never had to get close to the ground. I’m not sure if that’s current strategy but it seems like a cool idea to cut down on noise and proximity issues.
That’s actually an idea: create a lightweight Ariel tram way just for package delivery. Sort of like the old vacuum tube networks some cities used to have.