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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?

#161

Post by dizhn »

vrosas wrote: post #115
Analemma_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There should be even larger drones that are always in the air that are used as supply hubs for these smaller drones. Actually those should be whole warehouses where people work.

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

#162

Post by l__l »

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.

Absolutely. In cities which are equipped for it, the small self-driving vehicles make so much more sense, for this reason.

Starship (https://www.starship.xyz/) have been running in a big way regularly in Milton Keynes (UK) for years now; the little robots driving around are a regular feature. Seems to be expanding to Cambridge (UK) too.

I imagine US suburb design makes this less feasible (I think I read that Starship started on college campuses in the states), and that's why we don't hear so much excitement about this approach? It seems to make way more sense to me than drones, mostly for the weather issue

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

#165

Post by rightbyte »

_hypx wrote: post #112
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…

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.

One of them also don't need to generate upwards lift. A helicopter is also less efficient than a truck.

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

#168

Post by lolinder »

ggreer wrote: post #138
lolinder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this sounds like the FAA is doing its job. Tiny consumer drones are one thing, but if there are going to be fleets of drones carrying packages all over my city, I'll take a slow and thorough FAA over move fast and break things.

Drone deliveries substitute for cars and trucks, which kill 20 pedestrians every day in the US.

That's the stat for all cars and trucks, but drone delivery isn't going to get commuters off the road. How many deaths are due to package delivery vehicles? More specifically, how many are due to the vehicles that will actually be replaced by drones?

That's the number to beat, and even a single collision with an airplane would most likely make up the yearly allotment before we even get into "package falls on someone's head", "drone runs out of battery over the freeway", and all the other failure modes a drone has.

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

#169

Post by rchaud »

ggreer wrote: post #138
lolinder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this sounds like the FAA is doing its job. Tiny consumer drones are one thing, but if there are going to be fleets of drones carrying packages all over my city, I'll take a slow and thorough FAA over move fast and break things.

Drone deliveries substitute for cars and trucks, which kill 20 pedestrians every day in the US.

All 20 deaths/day are attributable to delivery drivers?
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