HACKER Q&A
📣 moomoo11

Why aren't drones doing more (seems easier than self driving cars)


Like why doesn’t Amazon put like 10 drones on their van’s roof and the van could park on a street and deliver to every customer on the street or community. Sending a dude out one by one is dumb.

Or, get my groceries delivered right to my building or home.

I live in SF and would be cool if all the tall buildings acted as relay stations for the drones. I’m sure the range on those drones sucks, so they probably need to charge and also pass it off to the next drone to complete delivery especially if it’s coming from a distant place.

What are the downsides? Noise? I’m already used to people screeching and wailing, assholes who rev their bikes at 2am, and of course the July 4 fireworks in (checks watch) October. Drone noise is negligible if I’m getting my stuff quicker.

Idk. Isn’t 3d space more freeing to do more stuff in? Especially if it’s in the range below FAA level. Programming autonomous drone swarms sounds so damn cool I’d love to work on that lol.

I just think it would be more revolutionary and interesting than some wack car without a steering wheel. It would only honestly be good in SF and I personally like driving and wouldn’t ever support giving up my autonomy to go where I want when I want without waiting 5-10 minutes and then paying $.80 per minute or whatever bs pricing these companies will come up with.

  👤 lordkrandel Accepted Answer ✓
If it hasnt been done yet, probably is for practical and regulation reasons. How many things are there that require a drone to be flied carefully? Roadworks, trucks, people on the street, renovations. Second, it's not hard to take down a drone, so if you're a criminal you'd start stealing drones with packages in place of simple packages. Third, drones must be able to lift and transport boxes of different sizes, which can be not trivial, given wind, possibly being hit by this or that. Fourth self flying is still not in reach, suppose you try to deposit and the large dog comes to see what happens in the backyard. Actually having 10 people remotely flying 10 drones is not so cheap. As for regulation, I suspect there's plenty of people who don't want drones in the neighboorhood where their kids are walking and cycling, for security reasons.
👤 GianFabien
Gravity is the biggest factor. In order to carry an average size and weight package, requires a larger drone, with larger propellors, larger motors which requires ever bigger batteries. Same with increasing range, yet more battery capacity is required.

What is overlooked is that EVs weigh 50% more than the equivalent capability fossil fuel powered cars. High energy batteries are heavy. Our roads are subjected to increased wear and tear.