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

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

#91

Post by emacsen »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #83
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.

Labor ~60% of delivery cost: https://www.dispatchtrack.com/blog/last-mile-delivery-costs-... If people have the option to get a package ~10% slower for ~60% cheaper, they'll take the slower option the vast majority of the time. I would have assumed that the savings in labor would be eaten by drones using more energy, but it looks like drones can actually be significantly more energy efficient than light-trucks for de…

This is unintuivite at first, but makes sense. As we approach last mile, economies of scale begin to not only diminish, but invert.

Let me put it another way... it's very inefficient to move cargo by a fleet of cars vs a fleet of trucks, and it's even more efficient to move cargo by train.

But it would be terribly inefficient to move that train to your home. A UPS truck is more efficient than a train, and a guy on a bike might be more efficient than a UPS truck, other than labor.

But if we can get an autonomous vehicle, then the labor goes away, and if the delivery drone is electric, then it can largely be very efficient- going point to point in a straight line.

I hadn't thought about it before, but it makes so much sense.

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

#92

Post by emacsen »

emodendroket wrote: post #90
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor ~60% of delivery cost: https://www.dispatchtrack.com/blog/last-mile-delivery-costs-... If people have the option to get a package ~10% slower for ~60% cheaper, they'll take the slower option the vast majority of the time. I would have assumed that the savings in labor would be eaten by drones using more energy, but it looks like drones can actually be significantly more energy efficient than light-trucks for de…

I doubt the cost for the drone is 0% of the cost of having a guy operate a truck.

Not 0%, but a drone center can have a few people operating many drones, so the labor cost is distributed there too.

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

#93

Post by atrus »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #83
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.

Labor ~60% of delivery cost: https://www.dispatchtrack.com/blog/last-mile-delivery-costs-... If people have the option to get a package ~10% slower for ~60% cheaper, they'll take the slower option the vast majority of the time. I would have assumed that the savings in labor would be eaten by drones using more energy, but it looks like drones can actually be significantly more energy efficient than light-trucks for de…

Except it wouldn't be 10% slower for 60% cheaper of their item, it's 60% cheaper for the delivery cost which is a small fraction of the overall cost.

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

#94

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

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…

Mark Rober video of Zipline:

https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU

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

#96

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

BizarroLand wrote: post #58
l33t233372 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet that even the worst Amazon truck gets more pounds of product per Joule expended than the best drone for any reasonably real world distance/load.

The difference is both direct ground contact and fuel capacity. Even if a drone could carry the energy equivalent of a 20 gallon fuel tank with it, it would waste the majority of that energy both keeping itself and its energy aloft. Tires and other ground plane vehicles, mitigate the majority of that waste in exchange for increased navigational difficulty (regarding obstacles like buildings and trees but also moving…

And fixed-wing aircraft are substantially more efficient than rotorcraft.

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

#97

Post by gwbas1c »

Every time I've heard about drone delivery; it was either implied or directly stated that it would take a long time to be generally available. It's easy to forget that, historically, "tech" would often take decades to develop. (The rapid changes we saw in the 1990s and early 2000s is unusual.)

One thing that I think would be interesting is "hybrid" drone delivery: A delivery truck could drive to a central location, and then a "swarm" of drones could drop off packages at homes within a small radius.

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

#98

Post by Shawnj2 »

jebarker wrote: post #78
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.

Zip line also works because it’s for rural areas that don’t have a good road network, in the US driving would almost certainly be faster.

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

#99

Post by maxwin »

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…

in addition to car accidents, in the future , you will have one more way to die prematurely : drone accidents

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

#100

Post by imglorp »

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…

Also in the LZ column: trees and power lines. From above, looking down, power lines are almost impossible to spot for human pilots. A CV model steering down from 400 feet would need to avoid such.
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