Whatever Happened to Amazon’s Delivery Drones?
In the 1970’s we were promised flying cars by the year 2000.
Of course that never happened.
We were also promised that every man, woman and child would own a Segway.
Odds are you don’t even know what a Segway is.
Google glasses were going to be hugely popular.
They weren’t.
Are the Amazon drones just something else that was promised but will never happen?
Actually, we might still get delivery drones, but Amazon might not be the first company to achieve success with them.
Amazon learned the hard way that developing and testing delivery drones is more complicated than they thought. Multiple drone crashes, drones setting fire to 25 acres of Oregon land, safety concerns (because, you know, CRASHES) employee turnover and more has delayed Amazon from using drones for years.
Now Amazon is set to test drone delivery again, this time in Lockeford, California.
Meanwhile, Google, Walmart and UPS are all working on their own drone delivery projects. Google’s Project Wing has completed over 200,000 commercial deliveries. Walmart has been granted a patent for their drone delivery system. And UPS has been granted approval by the FAA to operate drones in rural and suburban areas.
I can’t help wondering what will stop people from shooting delivery drones out of the sky for sport. No, it’s not something I would ever do, but there are a certain faction of folks who would think it a great coup to take down a delivery drone.
And drones are expensive. What’s to stop someone from ordering something at an address that isn’t their own, waiting on the street and then nabbing the drone when it arrives? I’m guess a big net is all you’d need. Disable the GPS and you’re home free, or so I imagine.
And most agree that the cost of drone delivery will increase the cost of goods delivered, too.
While these companies try to work out the bugs, we’ll happily settle for packages delivered by real life human beings. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’m just fine with that.
https://www.makeuseof.com/what-happened-to-amazon-delivery-drones/
One thing you never hear mentioned is the legal ramifications of drone delivery. It’s only legal in certain places under certain strict conditions unless you get waivers. For more info on drone delivery legalities and challenges, check this out:
