[HN Gopher] The slow collapse of Amazon's drone delivery dream
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The slow collapse of Amazon's drone delivery dream
Author : TigeriusKirk
Score : 35 points
Date : 2021-08-03 15:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.co.uk)
| oh_sigh wrote:
| In a previous role, I worked with one of the leads of the prime
| air team, a European man whose name is curiously that of a
| popular Asian food. Anyways, he impressed me 100% as a
| schmoozer/ladder climber, so I can't say that I'm particularly
| surprised by the result if he is the kind of person who was
| running the program for 5+ years. He also (before prime air) led
| a team of like 4 or 5 very senior(principal+) engineers who
| basically stole the credit for a certain project that was
| actually done by my team of 8 mid-level/fresh out of college SDEs
| wheredidtheygo wrote:
| Did his name rhyme with Kimchi? If so, I was baffled when he
| was hired as a VP and even more confused it took so long for
| him to 'depart' Amazon.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Step 0 of improving package delivery is to make sure every
| location has a simple package locker available.
| egh wrote:
| Automation can't deliver packages either, lol
| nomel wrote:
| My naive assumption is that regulations (appropriate or not) is
| what prevented this from getting off the ground.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yup. Zipline in Rwanda and Ghana have made over 150,000
| commercial drone deliveries. And have done so safely. (Their
| autonomous winged drones have a range of over 300km on a
| charge.) https://www.morningbrew.com/emerging-
| tech/stories/2021/06/30...
|
| Only token demonstration projects in the US, unfortunately.
| bluescrn wrote:
| They've found a niche there where drone deliveries can work
| and be worthwhile. Getting lightweight but vitally
| important payloads (medical supplies) quickly to locations
| hard to access by road.
|
| Amazon is in the business of delivering bulky and heavy
| packages, often of low value and importance, and poorly-
| but-cheaply packed into oversized cardboard boxes. I can't
| imagine a very large percentage of Amazon deliveries would
| be in any way suited to drone delivery, especially when
| you've got to limit it to destinations with a suitable
| landing/drop zone, within a certain range of a depot but
| away from dense urban areas (too high-risk to operate in)
| neom wrote:
| My former startup got Jersey City to draft legislation that
| fully paved the way for delivery drone to operate in the
| city, they even went as far as to have the FAA clear their
| draft legislation, basically on the premise that drone
| companies would take it seriously, talked to Prime Air and
| they just shrugs and said sorry, not interested.
| egh wrote:
| sure
|
| > UK regulators also fast-tracked approvals for drone
| testing, which made the country an ideal testbed for drone
| flights and paved the way for Amazon to gain regulatory
| approval elsewhere.
| salt-thrower wrote:
| The only hurdle was that the drones had to be so heavy to
| handle packages that it put them in a higher weight class
| subject to more rules. But other than that, the article
| mentions that the UK and the US regulatory bodies have both
| approved the project.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| I wonder what the stats were on weight of packages vs
| required drone weight. Ie where is the cutoff of package
| weight, to ensure that the money they invest in drones
| would affect X percent of sales?
|
| Eg i imagine if they made drones for a package weight of,
| say, 10 ounces, they could.. hopefully, make smaller drones
| and perhaps have an easier time with regulations. However
| the package size limit is so small that the drones aren't
| likely worth it.
|
| So as we increase package weight, we include more packages
| and percentage of sales... but also increase drone size and
| regulatory issues.
|
| I imagine there isn't a "sweet spot" otherwise they would
| have done it. Nevertheless i'm curious what that axis
| looked like.
| _rpd wrote:
| I don't know about the UK, but in the US the FAA required
| that each drone be operated by a licensed pilot, which
| changed the economics.
|
| There's some talk of autonomous software being granted a
| pilot's license, so that might shift things again.
| bperson wrote:
| It is literally regulations that keep unproven aircraft
| grounded, yes
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Only if they're uncrewed. Any idiot can legally fly an
| ultralight experimental aircraft with basically zero
| oversight. I don't think you even need a pilot's license.
| But God forbid you try to do the same thing without putting
| a pilot at risk; that's effectively illegal.
| sokoloff wrote:
| That makes some amount of sense. If you put the
| ultralight pilot in the craft, they literally have skin
| in the game. Further, ultralights cannot be flown over
| "congested areas" of a town/city.
|
| Trying to apply those rules to drone deliveries while
| ignoring those two pretty fundamental elements doesn't
| strike me as evidence that the FAA is being arbitrary or
| capricious.
| User23 wrote:
| Idiots flying ultralights are a problem that's going to
| self-eliminate quickly.
| NateEag wrote:
| Which actually makes sense.
|
| When you're risking your own life, you'll likely be at
| least somewhat careful.
|
| When you're just flying an empty test vehicle you'll be
| much more reckless, and thus way more likely to crash it
| on other people's property or other people.
|
| Hence, much more tightly regulated.
| jcims wrote:
| Part 103 aircraft don't need a license of any sort. There
| are of course a bunch of regulations about how/when/where
| you fly it, but you don't need any official training or
| certification.
| mrinterweb wrote:
| I can't really see any wide-scale drone operation operating in a
| residential areas. The decibel output of a single delivery drone
| similar to a delivery van ~70 decibels (hard to get comparable
| decibel output). A delivery truck driver averages around 120
| deliveries from one van. A drone can carry one (or maybe a few
| packages at a time). There would need to be many more round trips
| for drones meaning far more distance covered by drone. This would
| require more drones than vans to complete deliveries. Drones
| sound has a much higher frequency than a van, and to me, drones
| are more noticeable than the similar decibel output of a van.
|
| To be fair, drones have one advantage and that is that they can
| cover most of the range between the pickup and drop-off points at
| higher altitudes that would decrease decibels at ground level.
| salt-thrower wrote:
| I doubt many people really want obnoxious drones flying through
| their neighborhood anyway. I know we already have cars and trucks
| which are noisy and potentially hazardous, so maybe people would
| just get used to drones too - but drones are just inherently
| unsettling at some basic level. I'm not sure why.
| underseacables wrote:
| I would predict the issue of interference from third party
| ground lifeforms to be the largest obstacle to over come. Heck,
| even a kid with a slingshot could do a lot of damage.
| gruez wrote:
| Windows seem to do fine, despite being equally being
| vulnerable to slingshots and being sitting ducks.
| jcims wrote:
| I like the blimp mothership idea.
| neolog wrote:
| > I'm not sure why.
|
| Small drones are 80+ dB (louder than a vacuum cleaner).
| Delivery drones are even louder.
| r00fus wrote:
| > but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic
| level. I'm not sure why.
|
| Drones are a perfect surveillance or weapons platform. You
| could really mess someone up with a drone and most people
| intuitively get that.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic
| level. I'm not sure why
|
| I'll give two reasons, though doubtless there are more.
|
| 1. They add a third dimension of visibility, thus decreasing or
| eliminating outdoor privacy. Currently, I can sit on my back
| porch and watch the kids play in a suburban, fenced yard. With
| drones overhead, the privacy we currently enjoy is lost.
|
| 2. They remove what reasonable boundaries for "safe zones" we
| have left. For the entire lives of everyone now living, "don't
| play in the street" has been equivalent to "play in the grass
| where you're safe." With drones, instead of "look left and
| right before crossing the street," it's "look left, right, and
| up, and estimate the trajectory of any drones at all times."
| elromulous wrote:
| Do you suppose people felt the same way about automobiles
| before their use was widespread?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Not really. Horse drawn carriages were also dangerous to get
| near, iron shod hooves on cobbles were loud, and they left
| big piles of unsanitary dung.
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