Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 228 posts

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#71

Post by poopsmithe »

Long story short, It's the FAA's fault. Initially they said, "no, you can't do that" because there are no regulations for that. With pressure from companies, the FAA took years to create the rules to make drone deliveries legal. Finally there is some regulatory framework.

Drones have to be specifically designed and manufactured to pass the FAA's certification program. We've all seen capable drones from Amazon's marketing, but does it please the FAA? A drone can't do the job until the FAA signs off on that make/model. It's not easy to do and requires developing a craft with all sorts of safety features.

Companies are making progress, and I think the most insightful videos to watch on the topic come from Zipline. They're already operating in Rwanda with support from their government. They have a streamlined service and make 100s of deliveries per day.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#72

Post by carabiner »

djohnston wrote: post #8
Analemma_ wrote: post #5

I 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…

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.

2 is wrong and you are exactly right. Amazon explains drones are exactly for meant for rural areas here: https://youtu.be/yMqbj4Kj-z0?t=688

A lone driver might get paid X $/hour but in a rural area, only reach a single house with his truck, whereas the same driver might make 10x deliveries in the same time period in an urban area. And optimally, you'd have one drone pilot controlling multiple drones at the same time with each one taking less time than a car.

I'm guessing the biggest cost here isn't fuel or energy, it's the staffing.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#73

Post by datavirtue »

Analemma_ wrote: post #14
djohnston wrote: post #8

Earlier 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.

Winner. Battery capacity needs to double and charge twice as fast to make EV adoption possible.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#74

Post by ghaff »

CSMastermind wrote: post #55

I think that Wendover has the best summary: https://youtu.be/J-M98KLgaUU Here's the tl;dr: The "last foot" problem is the biggest killer. Getting a drone into the air and to its target is not the hard problem - getting a package safely to the ground at someone's home is. It would require either a very specific neighborhood or a big advance in computer vision and AI tech. Where we have seen success in this space are p…

And I'm pretty sure none of those prepared food or even meal kit companies actually made money so once the free money evaporated people weren't generally willing to pay what it cost to get a cold soggy hamburger delivered.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#76

Post by karaterobot »

djohnston wrote: post #8
Analemma_ wrote: post #5

I 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…

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.

In his point #2, he is saying you can deliver to rural areas, but not to densely populated areas like cities, where there are not enough landing sites. I have no idea whether this is correct or not.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#77

Post by silisili »

doug_life wrote: post #41

I live in a Durham, NC and there is a small radius where a company called Flytrex does drone food delivery. We use it every couple weeks since they have almost no fees unlike Uber Eats. From what I understand they place the order, drive a car to pick up your food, drive back to the launch pad, then load and send the drone. It then drops the food using a long cable that leaves behind a reusable bag in your front lawn.…

Fascinating. But curious how it can operate without higher fees? There's still the person driving to the place, waiting for the order, then driving back to launch. In fact, it almost feels like this would be more expensive in many cases than just bringing it straight over. Burning VC money?

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#78

Post by jebarker »

poopsmithe wrote: post #71

Long story short, It's the FAA's fault. Initially they said, "no, you can't do that" because there are no regulations for that. With pressure from companies, the FAA took years to create the rules to make drone deliveries legal. Finally there is some regulatory framework. Drones have to be specifically designed and manufactured to pass the FAA's certification program. We've all seen capable drones from Amazon's marke…

Zipline's work in Rwanda is really inspiring. I love that they are doing real good in the world first and can leverage that to grow their commercial business.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?

#79

Post by rkagerer »

mortenjorck wrote: post #69

I interviewed a few months ago with one of the leaders in the space, and when I asked the HM my standard “what do you see as the biggest challenge facing the business right now” I got a surprising answer: “the weather.” My sense is that drone delivery has the same weather dependency as self-driving cars, only greatly magnified.

I'm not surprised at all - that was the every first constraint that came to mind when I first heard about this idea.
Post reply on HN