4 ms·

Of all the things I think this will really impact, I think food delivery and fresh ingredient delivery will be near the top of the list.

onion2k 8y ago
It's a little sad that people's first thoughts about tech like this is "It can bring me goods faster than FedEx!" That's such a trivial thing to use it for. Emergency deliveries in rural areas are where this will be most useful. Getting medicine and mechanical parts to remote places during crisises is hard.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  I think the simple economics of it would completely rule out this being used for 'fresh groceries' ... or rather only to people who want to pay 10x for their groceries. My bet: the military/security/coast guard, for far off service posts (like when they put hydro wires way out in the middle of nowhere), offshore Oil, and for very specific things (i.e. medical equipment) for remote communities.
  - THE_PUN_STOPS 8y ago
    Read the article. The founder was an operations guy at Tesla and specifically did the numbers to justify the company based on the need of Tesla parts supply. There is room for this in the supply chain of many firms. There’s a lot of industries where waiting for something can be very expensive.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      I worked in a Fortune 50 consumer electronics company, sitting right next to our procurement team. It's not my field and I'm not an expert but I know enough to be wary of a founder who makes such claims, moreover, there's enough data available to piece together what would work and not without having to accept anyone's claims on it. Most companies and their parts suppliers are in cities, wherein there are any number of efficient modes of transportation - to the point wherein 'a drone' wouldn't even make logical sense, let alone economic. There's going to be a considerable overhead associated with operating them - control centers, NOCs, etc. etc. so it might very well be that the 'lack of a human' is the real differentiating factor, i.e. safety, risk. Nobody is going to be flying 'fresh ingredients' anywhere on those drones, there are regular planes for that as well. So the use case of 'landing on a moving sheep' is probably right up their alley: it's remote, far, and landing on a moving ship is very dangerous. So it might be the killer use case for something like this. Remember the ship would have to be fitted with a permanent lading spot, trained crew etc. etc. so it would have to be used for something needed consistently.
      - Maybestring 8y ago
        >So the use case of 'landing on a moving sheep' is probably right up their alley This is critical, as it's almost impossible to hold a sheep stationary while landing a drone on it.
        greglindahl 8y ago
        A friend of mine who bought a farm reports that you basically have to tackle them, American football-style, in order to shear them. That sounds like it might be hard to automate.
      - regularfry 8y ago
        Car manufacturers are an interesting case, though. Despite all the efficiencies in the system, I do know of cases where boxes of replacement parts were helicoptered to the factory to avoid the contractual penalties for holding up the Just In Time system. There's definitely a place for "cheaper than helicopter" delivery, even if it is only where things have gone so horrifically wrong that paying almost any price is worthwhile.
      - SimbaOnSteroids 8y ago
        This is also talking about a first generation implementation. Subsequent generations become harder to predict in terms of capability and overhead.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - asynchronous13 8y ago
    I agree with you that deliveries to offshore oil and specific functions will be very practical. However, not so sure I agree that economics will prevent 'fresh grocery' delivery. It will be different vehicles for sure, but the operating costs of a small electric vehicle with 5-10lb payload can be very low (cents/hour). I doubt there's going to be direct farm-to-house deliveries, but instead something that can augment the current transportation infrastructure. Imagine a national grocery chain adopts small electric drones for last-mile delivery. They leverage existing shipping network in place to keep stores stocked, and just send drone deliveries from store-to-house. Actual flight cost for one round-trip store-to-house is going to be pennies.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Marginal flight cost might be pennies, but they will also have to account for the cost of the drones, maintenance, repair, replacement, and liability for damages that they do.
- slavik81 8y ago
  Is there a reason that air drops are unsuitable? The new thing here seems to be VTOL. Fixed-wing UAVs can carry an order of magnitude more cargo the same distance.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  ZipLine have been running trials with blood and critically needed drugs on this in Africa for a while.
agumonkey 8y ago
medicine too
- nordsieck 8y ago
  Most medicine stores well. A flying epi-pen / defibrillator might be really useful, though.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    But if you're stuck in a mountain and in an emergency, a drone delivery could be quite the very nice
    - nordsieck 8y ago
      > But if you're stuck in a mountain and in an emergency, a drone delivery could be quite the very nice Sure. For the 5 people a year that happens to. Not really enough to build a company around. The only type of medicine that I can think of that's urgently needed, but that the person wouldn't have the foresight to keep on them is something like snake anti-venom. If medication is really important, people tend to just bring extras along with them.
      - agumonkey 8y ago
        hehe point taken

onion2k 8y ago

It's a little sad that people's first thoughts about tech like this is "It can bring me goods faster than FedEx!" That's such a trivial thing to use it for. Emergency deliveries in rural areas are where this will be most useful. Getting medicine and mechanical parts to remote places during crisises is hard.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
I think the simple economics of it would completely rule out this being used for 'fresh groceries' ... or rather only to people who want to pay 10x for their groceries. My bet: the military/security/coast guard, for far off service posts (like when they put hydro wires way out in the middle of nowhere), offshore Oil, and for very specific things (i.e. medical equipment) for remote communities.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 8y ago
  Read the article. The founder was an operations guy at Tesla and specifically did the numbers to justify the company based on the need of Tesla parts supply. There is room for this in the supply chain of many firms. There’s a lot of industries where waiting for something can be very expensive.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    I worked in a Fortune 50 consumer electronics company, sitting right next to our procurement team. It's not my field and I'm not an expert but I know enough to be wary of a founder who makes such claims, moreover, there's enough data available to piece together what would work and not without having to accept anyone's claims on it. Most companies and their parts suppliers are in cities, wherein there are any number of efficient modes of transportation - to the point wherein 'a drone' wouldn't even make logical sense, let alone economic. There's going to be a considerable overhead associated with operating them - control centers, NOCs, etc. etc. so it might very well be that the 'lack of a human' is the real differentiating factor, i.e. safety, risk. Nobody is going to be flying 'fresh ingredients' anywhere on those drones, there are regular planes for that as well. So the use case of 'landing on a moving sheep' is probably right up their alley: it's remote, far, and landing on a moving ship is very dangerous. So it might be the killer use case for something like this. Remember the ship would have to be fitted with a permanent lading spot, trained crew etc. etc. so it would have to be used for something needed consistently.
    - Maybestring 8y ago
      >So the use case of 'landing on a moving sheep' is probably right up their alley This is critical, as it's almost impossible to hold a sheep stationary while landing a drone on it.
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        A friend of mine who bought a farm reports that you basically have to tackle them, American football-style, in order to shear them. That sounds like it might be hard to automate.
    - regularfry 8y ago
      Car manufacturers are an interesting case, though. Despite all the efficiencies in the system, I do know of cases where boxes of replacement parts were helicoptered to the factory to avoid the contractual penalties for holding up the Just In Time system. There's definitely a place for "cheaper than helicopter" delivery, even if it is only where things have gone so horrifically wrong that paying almost any price is worthwhile.
    - SimbaOnSteroids 8y ago
      This is also talking about a first generation implementation. Subsequent generations become harder to predict in terms of capability and overhead.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- asynchronous13 8y ago
  I agree with you that deliveries to offshore oil and specific functions will be very practical. However, not so sure I agree that economics will prevent 'fresh grocery' delivery. It will be different vehicles for sure, but the operating costs of a small electric vehicle with 5-10lb payload can be very low (cents/hour). I doubt there's going to be direct farm-to-house deliveries, but instead something that can augment the current transportation infrastructure. Imagine a national grocery chain adopts small electric drones for last-mile delivery. They leverage existing shipping network in place to keep stores stocked, and just send drone deliveries from store-to-house. Actual flight cost for one round-trip store-to-house is going to be pennies.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Marginal flight cost might be pennies, but they will also have to account for the cost of the drones, maintenance, repair, replacement, and liability for damages that they do.
slavik81 8y ago
Is there a reason that air drops are unsuitable? The new thing here seems to be VTOL. Fixed-wing UAVs can carry an order of magnitude more cargo the same distance.
noir_lord 8y ago
ZipLine have been running trials with blood and critically needed drugs on this in Africa for a while.

agumonkey 8y ago

medicine too

nordsieck 8y ago
Most medicine stores well. A flying epi-pen / defibrillator might be really useful, though.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  But if you're stuck in a mountain and in an emergency, a drone delivery could be quite the very nice
  - nordsieck 8y ago
    > But if you're stuck in a mountain and in an emergency, a drone delivery could be quite the very nice Sure. For the 5 people a year that happens to. Not really enough to build a company around. The only type of medicine that I can think of that's urgently needed, but that the person wouldn't have the foresight to keep on them is something like snake anti-venom. If medication is really important, people tend to just bring extras along with them.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      hehe point taken