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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?

#121

Post by BurningFrog »

roarcher wrote: post #34
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 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…

One "hybrid" solution is to base the drones on a truck that drives around the city.

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

#122

Post by peepeepoopoo18 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118
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…

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?

Renton Airport, Boeing Field, Seatac, Paine Field Harvey Field, Arlington Field, plus scores of smaller poorly marked airstrips if you check OpenStreetMap. It turns out very few places in the US are sufficiently far away from an "airport" to allow drones to operate. Even out in the boonies.

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

#123

Post by devoutsalsa »

BurningFrog wrote: post #121
roarcher wrote: post #34

Earlier 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…

One "hybrid" solution is to base the drones on a truck that drives around the city.

An aircraft carrier aircraft carrier!

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

#124

Post by seanmcdirmid »

peepeepoopoo18 wrote: post #122
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Renton Airport, Boeing Field, Seatac, Paine Field Harvey Field, Arlington Field, plus scores of smaller poorly marked airstrips if you check OpenStreetMap. It turns out very few places in the US are sufficiently far away from an "airport" to allow drones to operate. Even out in the boonies.

There is literally nothing in Seattle between Paine field and Boeing field in the main I5 corridor if you don’t count sea planes (all the airport symbols along the lake are float planes, Boeing field, SeaTac, and Renton are all basically right next to each other). It is a pretty air strip dead zone, you had to go all the way out to Arlington to mention another one (they have a nice playground next to it that the kid likes to watch planes from)! And ya, the boonies have landing strips everywhere (like the one out near Snohomish used for sky diving).

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

#125

Post by marricks »

It's funny cause those talks happened when labor was relatively cheaper, similar with the "we'll just replace fast food workers with robots."

Now that labor is even less readily available we're talking about it... less. And that's even off that back of low interest rates and easier money for such initiatives.

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

#127

Post by floren »

schiffern wrote: post #117
_hypx wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... https://www.imcdb.org/v001094117.htm…

Anytime you think, "ah, the solution is this thing from Ready Player One", step back and remember the following:

- that book was set in a shitty gig economy dystopia, even if the main character managed to personally get rich in the end

- that book was fucking terrible and it's frankly embarrassing that grown adults make reference to it in a positive manner

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

#128

Post by 1000bestlives »

com2kid wrote: post #37
Jasper_ wrote: post #4

Are you kidding me? It was all basically vaporware that disappeared when the free money ended. The Kiwi food delivery robots were basically fake -- they only went about 1/8 of a mile automatically. So they'd drive a car to the end of a street with your food and a robot, and then get the robot out of the car, put the food inside, and then the robot would hobble over a couple hundred feet to your door. Absolutely usele…

> > > The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all. Imagine if every story…

How does it feel to be an illiterate among the educated?

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

#129

Post by NicoJuicy »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #110
myself248 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I've always imagined it. The top of the FedEx truck is a mini-helipad, and there are two people on the truck. As the truck makes its normal route stopping to deliver heavy packages on foot, there are two drones darting back and forth delivering light ones, with someone constantly feeding them packages and batteries. Somewhere years ago I have a chat log where I describe the whole thing as imagined, includi…

I would bet money that the cost of - a second person (pay + benefits + training) - drones - helipad - vehicle idle time for loading the drones is more expensive than one person just driving the boxes around.

I don't think so.

You're describing the total cost and ignoring the larger amount of packages being delivered.

Cost per package drops.

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

#130

Post by sharkjacobs »

BurningFrog wrote: post #121
roarcher wrote: post #34

Earlier 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…

One "hybrid" solution is to base the drones on a truck that drives around the city.

that sounds like a fun travelling salesman problem with more moving parts. What is the best route for this drone platform truck, taking into account how efficient it is for each drone to make its delivery, and how the truck’s position will have changed in the time it takes for the drone to return.
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