The solution is to allow the drone to hot-swap the battery. You would put a bunch of batteries along the drone's planned flight path and it would automatically

The solution is to allow the drone to hot-swap the battery. You would put a bunch of batteries along the drone's planned flight path and it would automatically detect these batteries and replace its own emptying battery with the one placed on the ground. Potentially, if autonomous drones really take off, there could be a countrywide system of solar-powered charging stations that would supply drones with standardized batteries. Such infrastructure would be almost completely self-sufficient and allow drones to fly any distance. In fact, this model also works for electric cars, manned or unmanned. There's no reason why Tesla Supercharger stations cannot provide a fully charged battery to swap into your car. Of course you'd have to deposit your own battery first so that you cannot get a battery for free.