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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?

#211

Post by ggreer »

rchaud wrote: post #169
ggreer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Of course not, but drones substitute for more than just delivery drivers, and delivery drivers do run over people regularly. Searching for terms like "fedex driver crash" gets you plenty of crashes and a decent number of deaths.[1] The most common casualties seem to be the drivers themselves and dogs. Most deaths are ruled accidental, but around once a year a delivery driver is charged with homicide for killing people with their truck.[2][3] In cases where an unsupervised child is killed, the blame is usually placed on the parents rather than the driver.[4]

If you're worried about delivery drones flying over neighborhoods, you should be even more worried about multi-ton delivery trucks barreling through places where kids play.

1. https://pix11.com/news/local-news/cyclist-fatally-struck-by-...

2. https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/traffic/2021/12/driver-of-f...

3. https://mynbc15.com/news/local/mobile-ups-driver-indicted-fo...

4. https://www.foxla.com/news/amazon-denying-responsibility-aft...

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

#212

Post by thedougd »

JohnFen wrote: post #204
thedougd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone drives out and watches the drone land. If you order drinks, they bring them in the car.

Which seems to eliminate all of the benefits of drone delivery. If someone is driving out anyway, they could just deliver the stuff directly.

Well of course. I assume it's to prove the concept safe to gain approval to fly without a person present. But here we are, no such approval, and they're expanding territory. Why? To be challenged by more diversity in delivery situations? It doesn't seem like they have a clear path to success.

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

#213

Post by ant_li0n »

floren wrote: post #127
schiffern wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You know what’s even worse? The audiobook version, narrated by Will Wheaton.

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

#214

Post by QuantumG »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #191

I have a hard time seeing how drones would be compatible with any society that places any value on silence or has any stance against noise pollution. For example, how many people would have to hear the drone zipping by to deliver someone some hair scrunchies or paperclips or whatever? The asymmetry makes no sense to me long before you get into the other issues.

It's a problem you could solve with ion-wind and far-field wireless power transfer... or just blimps.

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

#218

Post by datavirtue »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #109
datavirtue wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Swappable batteries makes the charge time a nonissue.

Swappable 1000lb batteries? Gasoline weighs 80lbs.

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

#219

Post by john_q_public »

gwbas1c wrote: post #97

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, a…

I would argue that the changes you refer to around the turn of the millennium were not in fact all that rapid, but rather the more publicly visible phase of a more gradual change that started no later than 1969 (when ARPANET went live), perhaps well before that date.
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