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The Economics of Drone Delivery

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Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#41

Post by desireco42 »

notahacker wrote: post #33
desireco42 wrote: post #15

What we have here is kind of lack of imagination. There are at least 2 parts of delivery that I see can be worked on with drones. One is last mile delivery, that honestly is challenging, unless you live in suburban or rural area. However one, more interesting and probably lucrative part that should be easier to implement would be transport between major hub to nearby delivery point. Since these points can be built ou…

The problems with the major hub to the delivery point are the same as some of those identified in the article: drones currently in operation don't have much carrying capability, and compensating for that with significantly more drones adds cost over a truck. Even if you scale your drones up to truck size and don't have any range limitations, you're carrying packages a similar distance whilst fighting gravity all the…

So what you are saying, there are no serious technical challenges (I think there are few challenges to be solved), just bureaucratic ones. That one are always solved with money, something Amazon clearly has.

Again, this is just an idea to show how this can be much more than it is today.

Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#42

Post by aurelianito »

The killer apps for drones are smuggling and delivery of illegal drugs. A kilogram of drugs is very expensive, so the drone costs are not relevant and it allows the seller not to be caught. They will also not be stopped by government regulations.

Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#44

Post by notahacker »

desireco42 wrote: post #41
notahacker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems with the major hub to the delivery point are the same as some of those identified in the article: drones currently in operation don't have much carrying capability, and compensating for that with significantly more drones adds cost over a truck. Even if you scale your drones up to truck size and don't have any range limitations, you're carrying packages a similar distance whilst fighting gravity all the…

So what you are saying, there are no serious technical challenges (I think there are few challenges to be solved), just bureaucratic ones. That one are always solved with money, something Amazon clearly has. Again, this is just an idea to show how this can be much more than it is today.

That's not really what I was saying at all. I'm saying we have good reason to expect drone technology to continue to be vastly more expensive than trucks for transporting groups of packages over long distance, and little reason to believe that drones will make a significant enough impact on delivery time for it to be worth it for the types of products normally ordered from Amazon since the bottlenecks are all elsewhere.

I haven't seen too many long-distance, high-payload drones on the market either...

Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#45

Post by TheCoelacanth »

aurelianito wrote: post #42

The killer apps for drones are smuggling and delivery of illegal drugs. A kilogram of drugs is very expensive, so the drone costs are not relevant and it allows the seller not to be caught. They will also not be stopped by government regulations.

But it also runs afoul of the "don't break two laws at once" principle. If you deliver drugs via conventional methods, the police need probable cause to stop and search you for drugs. If you deliver them via illegal drone, they can stop and search your drones whenever they want.

Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#46

Post by e12e »

notahacker wrote: post #44
desireco42 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you are saying, there are no serious technical challenges (I think there are few challenges to be solved), just bureaucratic ones. That one are always solved with money, something Amazon clearly has. Again, this is just an idea to show how this can be much more than it is today.

That's not really what I was saying at all. I'm saying we have good reason to expect drone technology to continue to be vastly more expensive than trucks for transporting groups of packages over long distance, and little reason to believe that drones will make a significant enough impact on delivery time for it to be worth it for the types of products normally ordered from Amazon since the bottlenecks are all elsewhe…

I suppose it depends on ones definition of "high payload". How many books to a Hellfire missile? Granted the military drones used for attack missions don't do VTOL, and aren't ready for autonomous take-off and landing (yet). But I believe there's lot of research in the area, and it doesn't seem inconceivable that a company like Amazon might get use from short, purpose-built landing-strips for similarily purpose-built drones.

Speaking of military delivery - I wonder if it might be possible to build one-off "drones-as-packaging" with maybe a parachute for breaking and a quadcopter-like design for final steering that allows for dropping "smart" packages from the sky down to a porch...

Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#47

Post by notahacker »

e12e wrote: post #46
notahacker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really what I was saying at all. I'm saying we have good reason to expect drone technology to continue to be vastly more expensive than trucks for transporting groups of packages over long distance, and little reason to believe that drones will make a significant enough impact on delivery time for it to be worth it for the types of products normally ordered from Amazon since the bottlenecks are all elsewhe…

I suppose it depends on ones definition of "high payload". How many books to a Hellfire missile? Granted the military drones used for attack missions don't do VTOL, and aren't ready for autonomous take-off and landing (yet). But I believe there's lot of research in the area, and it doesn't seem inconceivable that a company like Amazon might get use from short, purpose-built landing-strips for similarily purpose-built…

Suggesting a $5M piece of military hardware capable of carrying a single 100lb missile pretty much emphasises my point about trucks (or even motorbikes!) being far superior options for medium-long distance transit. No matter how much research goes into developing commercial alternatives, carrying books through the air over long distances at speed rather than driving them along roads will expend significantly more energy and cost more money, because physics.

And whilst getting goods by parachute might have novelty value if I'm around to watch or be extremely useful if I'm stuck somewhere up a mountain, for everyday goods delivery I'd frankly rather have them handed to me by a person that considers the goods "delivered" when they're in my hands rather than probably in the right garden. It's also why their current delivery drivers aren't encouraged to save time by throwing non-fragile items at customers' houses as they drive past.

Re: The Economics of Drone Delivery

#48

Post by e12e »

notahacker wrote: post #47
e12e wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on ones definition of "high payload". How many books to a Hellfire missile? Granted the military drones used for attack missions don't do VTOL, and aren't ready for autonomous take-off and landing (yet). But I believe there's lot of research in the area, and it doesn't seem inconceivable that a company like Amazon might get use from short, purpose-built landing-strips for similarily purpose-built…

Suggesting a $5M piece of military hardware capable of carrying a single 100lb missile pretty much emphasises my point about trucks (or even motorbikes!) being far superior options for medium-long distance transit. No matter how much research goes into developing commercial alternatives, carrying books through the air over long distances at speed rather than driving them along roads will expend significantly more ene…

Fair points. I meant that there's lot of research and proven designs in fixed-wing drones that are much more fuel efficient than quadcopters.
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