Amazon Promised Drone Delivery In Five Years Five Years Ago

On December 1, 2013, Amazon announced its plans to deliver packages by drone in just "four or five years" on a 60 Minutes episode with then-host Charlie Rose. As The Associated Press reports, it's officially been five years and drone deliveries seem to be nowhere in sight. "Bezos made billions of dollars by transforming the retail sector," reports The Associated Press. "But overcoming the regulatory hurdles and safety issues posed by drones appears to be a challenge even for the world's wealthiest man." From the report: The day may not be far off when drones will carry medicine to people in rural or remote areas, but the marketing hype around instant delivery of consumer goods looks more and more like just that -- hype. Drones have a short battery life, and privacy concerns can be a hindrance, too. Amazon says it is still pushing ahead with plans to use drones for quick deliveries, though the company is staying away from fixed timelines. "We are committed to making our goal of delivering packages by drones in 30 minutes or less a reality," says Amazon spokeswoman Kristen Kish. The Seattle-based online retail giant says it has drone development centers in the United States, Austria, France, Israel and the United Kingdom.

Re:

[stealth_finger]

DHL is already using drones do delivery.

Just a new way to Drop it Hide it Lose it by DickHeads Ltd

actually...

[mschaffer]

Actually, Amazon did used their own drones for delivery---Amazon Logistics. From many of the surveillance video footage I saw the final several yards was often air delivered when the AMZL drones chuck packages great distances from their cars.

Re:

[Mr D from 63]

For those that actually believed we'd have drone delivery by now, just wait a few years. Its coming.

For those that knew better, there is still only a niche benefit atm, and individual copter style deliver is energy intenstive vs. rolling on wheels. Not even to mention other challenges. Plus, who wants drones flying all over the place?

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

For those that actually believed we'd have drone delivery by now, just wait a few years. Its coming. For those that knew better, there is still only a niche benefit atm, and individual copter style deliver is energy intenstive vs. rolling on wheels. Not even to mention other challenges. Plus, who wants drones flying all over the place?

I suppose if a person live in a treeless housing development in the middle of what used to be a farmer's field, it might make some sense. I'm trying to imagine drone delivery in my neighborhood. It's in a forest. Trees are pretty much everywhere except for the streets.

So Amazon's drones would have to fly at street level with the cars. At that point, you might as well just have a delivery truck,

Re:

[mi]

So Amazon's drones would have to fly at street level with the cars.

Why can't they fly above the trees — only descending to the street level when reaching the target address?

At that point, you might as well just have a delivery truck

A truck could be used the way air-carriers are used by the Navy — get to the general vicinity of the multiple delivery-destinations, park safely, and deploy drones for the "last mile" part. Multiple devices could be used, with the driver loading them up and replacing

Re:

[Mr D from 63]

Regulatory problems aren't a reason. When the technology is ready and benefit is clear, the "regulatory problems" disappear. They are just an excuse. If all regulatory burden were lifted today we still wouldn't have anything more than niche application of drone delivery.

It is regulation...

[mi]

Regulatory problems aren't a reason

They are. As I said already, FAA bans drone-operation outside of the operator's line of sight. One may ask for a waiver, but 99% of such requests are rejected [precisionhawk.com].

When the technology is ready and benefit is clear

Driverless cars are both harder to program and inherently more dangerous, should the programming fail. Yet, robotic taxis are already in operation [latimes.com] — in places, quoth the article: "chosen deliberately for its friendliness to driverless cars" — while the fede

Re:

[Mr D from 63]

The reason there are FAA regulatory limits is that the technology hasn't proven safe. Prove it safe and, as I said, the regulatory problem will be corrected. The technology unfortunately hasn't proven its case yet, nor have they proven a benefit so great as to push the changes with risk.

Driverless cars are irrelevant to the state of readiness of drones, which present a different set of issues.

Re:

[mi]

Prove it safe

...

Driverless cars are irrelevant to the state of readiness of drones

Of course, they are relevant — if the question really is the technology's safety. They are inherently less safe than drones, but are allowed nonetheless.

Re:

[Mr D from 63]

They are inherently less safe than drones, but are allowed nonetheless.

That is irrelevant as well. Cars and drones are very different things, with very different risks and benefits. There are limits on autonomous vehicles, there are limits on drones. Those limits take into account risk vs benefits. Drone operators are free to get special permits to demonstrate safety, just as car opeartors can.

Re:

[mi]

Cars and drones are very different things, with very different risks and benefits

Actually, no, they aren't very different — both are judged on the dangers of a) programming bugs; b) equipment failure — and any differences are in the drone's favor.

Drone operators are free to get special permits

"Free to get permit" is a self-contradictory construct in general. And even more so in particular, when — as has already been pointed out to you — the rejection-rate is 99% [precisionhawk.com].

But, you've already a

Re:

[Mr D from 63]

No, 99% are not yet approved (according to that article), but number of rejected is not stated. Timing is everything, and content. Need to look at why.

If you don't have a good case because the technology is not ready, then the technology is not ready.

Drones have issues beyond safety, including privacy and nuisance.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

In places where the average citizen hit by a self driving car doesn't have the power to participate in the legal system.

Math is the main reason. Cubed is more than square

[raymorris]

The *main* problem with quadcopters larger than about 300-500m across isn't regulation, it's math.

I have some and I enjoy flying them. I'm not anti-quad, I'm just pro-reality. To put simply, as the size of a quadcopter increases, the lift from the props is squared as the weight of the craft is cubed.

In other words, as the copter gets bigger, it's gets heavier a lot faster than the props gain lift. It very quickly can't lift itself, much less a package. Tiny quadcopters for flying around indoors are easy to

Re:

[mi]

Helicopters can and do have blades much longer than the width of the fuselage. You could do delivery with helicopters.

I don't believe, the topic of this thread is heli- vs. quadcopters. I don't think, Amazon've ever specified, which they technology they'll use — and if they did, that's not the relevant part anyway.

The topic, is the government's ban on unmanned flying apparata in general — except within line of sight of the remote operator.

Amazon was hyping using quads

[raymorris]

Regulation exists, but regulations around this topic are changed every two years.

Everything I've ever seen had Amazon talking about using quadcopters. I've never seen anything at all ever suggesting they were even thinking about using helicopters. Have you?

The hype is about using quads. The physics say that's not likely to work all that well. Not that very light packages (envelopes) would be impossible, as long as there isn't a breeze, but it doesn't scale.

The primary reason their plan won't work is physic

Re:

[mi]

Even stipulating — without you citing any sources — that the "hype" really was about quadcopters in particular, the real issue is autonomous over the air delivery in general. That is, no one would've blamed Amazon for "violating its promise" — as TFA does — if, having promised to use quadcopters, they used quintocopters instead.

Any such devices — however many or few rotors they employ — are currently against federal regulations. That's the topic.

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

So Amazon's drones would have to fly at street level with the cars.

Why can't they fly above the trees — only descending to the street level when reaching the target address?

You enter a forest at the edge of a forest. Google's images of our neighborhood are taken in the winter, because you don't see the houses, and not many streets either. This is a serious forest.

"Regulatory problems" is the key reason — current regulations prohibit operating drones outside of the operator's line of sight...

For certain. A drone coming through our development better have really good vision. Trees and branches up to around 100 feet.

I don't fly my drone here because the times that I did, it crashed. In order to navigate my neighborhood, the drone would have to duck and weave like a drunken sailor - unless at street level

Re:

[mi]

In order to navigate my neighborhood, the drone would have to duck and weave like a drunken sailor - unless at street level.

The ducking and weaving would still be much easier to program into an autonomous flying machine, than programming pedestrian-avoidance and traffic-sign observance into a surface vehicle.

And yet, we have robo-taxis already [latimes.com] — where regulations are "friendly" — but do not have drone-deliveries...

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

In order to navigate my neighborhood, the drone would have to duck and weave like a drunken sailor - unless at street level.

The ducking and weaving would still be much easier to program into an autonomous flying machine, than programming pedestrian-avoidance and traffic-sign observance into a surface vehicle.

So what is your recommendation. Seriously, you are telling me about the conditions in a place that you don't live. The maximum height the drone could fly is about thye height of an 18 wheeler. Even they contact trees. This is a real problem. Amazon is looking for you to be the new head of the department that will send these drones into the woods without problem.

REFUND!

[dohzer]

I want my refund!

Also

[phantomfive]

We're also approaching the year when we were promised self-driving cars. 2018 [theverge.com], or ~2017 [fortune.com], or 2018 [youtube.com]. It's going to be a few years of failed predictions.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

ZOMG!!! ZOMG!!! They lied to Charlie Rose! They lied to 60 Minutes!

Marketing Bullshit turns out to be . . . . BULLSHIT!!

Re:

[stealth_finger]

The good stuff is always just a few more years away.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

We haven't even got to level 3 autonomy yet. Audi tried but it didn't work, even in their demo the guy had to grab the wheel suddenly when the extremely narrow conditions it works under went away (under 40 kph, car in front, car or wall on both sides, decent weather, no difficult lighting like overhead bridges etc.)

Re:

[110010001000]

Funny when I point these things out, the technocrats always mod me down. Other things that will never happen: living permanently on Mars or the Moon, traveling to another solar system, self-driving cars, AI, significantly faster digital computers. Sorry about that.

Re: Also

[phantomfive]

When you say "never" that's a whole different class of assertion, though. A lot will happen in the next thousand years, hard to predict. Maybe if you change the way you phrase it.....

Re:

[LetterRip]

We're also approaching the year when we were promised self-driving cars. 2018, or ~2017, or 2018. It's going to be a few years of failed predictions.

Waymo started their self driving taxi service today.

Re:

[phantomfive]

You mean the self-driving taxi service that has a safety driver making sure it doesn't mess up?

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

We're also approaching the year when we were promised self-driving cars. 2018 [theverge.com], or ~2017 [fortune.com], or 2018 [youtube.com]. It's going to be a few years of failed predictions.

Good god. In the 1970s we were promised that by now you'd be living on Mars going to work in a automatic self-flying car while a flesh-covered robot masturbates you.

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

Also I fail at fucking links...

Forward looking statement [wikipedia.org]

I tried that link, and no fucking at all

We were promised hookers, blackjack and fucking!!!

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

We were promised hookers, blackjack and fucking!!!

Ahh the good old days when those promises actually held true.

Except for Chad at the club.

Regulatory hurdles?

[peppepz]

Rich people puchase legislation, they never had too many problems with regulation. However, they can't buy away the laws of physics, which is why they should be more careful before giving deadlines for vaporware projects that only exist in their minds.

Re:

[mi]

Rich people puchase legislation, they never had too many problems with regulation

Some times I actually wish this were true. It is not. Current regulations prohibit drone-operations outside of the operator's line of sight.

FAA could give you a waiver, but have so far rejected 99% of such applications [precisionhawk.com].

This kills off the most attractive use of drone — sending it out straight from the distribution center nearest to the customer. If a wheeled vehicle still needs to be used to get to where an Amazon employee

Re:

[peppepz]

I'm convinced that the regulatory hurdles will vanish once the necessary technical advancements required to create a profitable business segment out of drones are available. For now, there's the problem that a small and light vehicle can carry only so much energy; there's also the problem that such a vehicle can be brought down with little effort by someone who wants to come in possession of its payload, or can't think of something better to do; and so on.
Once upon a time there was a law that required cars

They have drone delivery!

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I can get stuff to my door in two-hours (one hour if I pay extra). That is drone delivery. Similarly, Uber and Lyft already supply on-demand self-driving cars. I mean, sure they can use tech to get people out of the loop, but as a consumer, I don't really care. Do you?

Re:

[phantomfive]

The human costs quite a lot for anything more than sporadic trips. If you could automate your commute every day, that would be something (and trains aren't the same for a lot of reasons).

Re:

[necro81]

I don't really care. Do you?

I'm sorry but you have a typo there. According to the beautiful people, it's supposed to be spelled [google.com] 'u', not 'you'.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

We've been doing that since 2010, so what?

[spiritplumber]

We've been doing that since 2010, the only people who cared was the local paper and the cops. Now it's old news and we've sorted it out with the cops so that we are allowed to operate How is this news?

Well

[nospam007]

"60 Minutes episode with then-host Charlie Rose. As The Associated Press reports, it's officially been five years and drone deliveries seem to be nowhere in sight. "

Charlie Rose is not in sight anywhere either.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Drones can be DANGEROUS!

[Futurepower(R)]

Remote control over drones can ALWAYS be eliminated or hijacked [google.com] by radio frequency interference.

Technology ALWAYS has failures, like those at Three Mile Island [wikipedia.org], Fukushima Daiichi [wikipedia.org], and Chernobyl [wikipedia.org].

Amazon drone delivery: nine ways it could go horribly wrong [telegraph.co.uk] (March 26, 2015)

I don't want drones near where I live. Will drones be allowed near where Jeff Bezos lives?

(Part of a comment I posted 18 months ago.)

Re:

[Sique]

It just works differently. Every company announces 10 or 20 or 50 nifty sounding ideas from their R&D-labs. And eventually, one of them materializes. But at the time of the announcement, no one knew which of the 10 or 20 or 50 it will be. Otherwise you wouldn't need R&D, because you already knew how to make the ideas work.

Re:

[PPH]

and the consumers keep falling for it....

That would be investors. Consumers are protected by laws and regulations. VCs are free for the fleecing.

AMZN quadrupled since 2013

[mi]

That would be investors. Consumers are protected by laws and regulations. VCs are free for the fleecing.

AMZN [yahoo.com] more than quadrupled since 2013, when the promise discussed in TFA was made. Investors buying the stocks back then based on this promise have no grounds for complaining today. But I doubt, there were many such, because the stock at a peak at the end of 2013, when the announcement was made, and dived in the Q1 2014.

It’s like nuclear fusion!

[xack]

Always X years away, for X years. Self driving and electric cars too [youtube.com]

Re:

[stealth_finger]

I remember when they used to say that about AI!

And it's still 30-50 years away.

Re:

[burtosis]

Strong AI is at a minimum 20 years out, and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen in 50. Weak AI is already here, but is really more of a specific problem optimization than actual "sentience", it is cool and you can use it for lots of stuff.

Re:

[burtosis]

We have had the electric motor technology and mechanical know how to make electric cars for over 100 years. It's just the battery tech that is holding things up. Even today the cost, power density, energy density, and design with sustainable materials are barely acceptable. Despite hearing about a new super battery every week, we haven't had a significant jump in tech since lithium rechargeables made thier debut around 2000, but rather slow incremental improvements.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

So you have to carry the bigger battery. Bigger drone.

Possible fix: Cloud-connected landing pads that double as charging stations. Amazon could give them away to Prime Members who'll set them up at their homes, and you'd earn Amazon credit each time a drone makes a pit stop.

To the naysayers who think short battery life can't be worked around, look at the cell phone industry. The technology required cell towers to be built all over the place (one tower per every 1 to 22 miles of coverage, depending on various factors), so that's what they did. I'm sure back

Re:

[JackieBrown]

Possible fix: Cloud-connected landing pads that double as charging stations. Amazon could give them away to Prime Members who'll set them up at their homes, and you'd earn Amazon credit each time a drone makes a pit stop.

Nah... they'd add a side benifit for their users and charge their users for the privilege. Such as the locks and cameras at you home that lets Amazon drop packages in your house so they don't have to replace a stolen package.

Re:

[PPH]

Think "friendly neighborhood lets leave it on the porch", or: might be stolen if I leave it here, I'll come back tomorrow.

My car's GPS system already has this rating system in its maps. Come to think of it, mortgage companies already have this geo data as well.

Re:

[PPH]

And a range-extender battery.

I'm going to invent a drone with current transformer charging built into claw-like feet. So when it's batteries get low, it can just seek out a power line, land on it and re-charge.

Did anyone think that was going to happen

[supercell]

in 5 years? Myself and most other realized it was publicity stunt at the time. They got enormous press coverage.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yourself realized it, huh? Weird.

WW3 is not over yet

[Max_W]

Every year about 1.5 million people are killed on roads in car accidents globally; times more a badly injured. These are figures consistent with a world war. You can check this statistics easily via a search.

Even more people are affected by cars' toxic pollution, both the exhaust and the rubber dust. At the same time about 50% of all traffic is a delivery of some kind. Civil RPASs (remotely piloted aircraft systems) could free roads from this excessive traffic, to save millions of lives.

However, the t

Re:WW3 is not over yet

[110010001000]

That has nothing to do with Amazon using drones. Amazon doesn't use drones because it wouldn't work and is a stupid idea. The technology isn't there.

Re:

[Max_W]

I heard at a conference that the Lufthansa high rank official said that he has no doubt that in future cargo will be transported by airplanes without pilots. https://www.lufthansa-aerial-s... [lufthansa-...rvices.com] But for this a leadership is required.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

Yes, driving is so risky no one wants to use a car..... oh, wait.

Re:

[Max_W]

I am not against a car per-se. But roads are a limited resource. Why to use a car to transport some papers from one office to another in a city? It creates too much traffic, jams, over-pollution, etc.

It can be done automatically by RPASs. All is needed a tiny helipad on a building roof and some leadership.

Unprofitable Deliveries

[mentil]

Amazon probably figured out that actual rollout of drones won't be profitable. Items under 5LB are generally low price, low margin. Electronics are an obvious exception but that'd be a small portion of the deliveries. Sure you pay more for drone delivery, but the R&D/rollout costs are high enough it'd take a long time to be profitable, even if it only delivered high-value merchandise like electronics.
The key question to Amazon is if someone who needs something ASAP will buy it via Amazon, or drive to a local store and buy it. Someone who can get to a store quickly is likely in the suburbs/city, so demand for drone delivery won't be so high there. In rural areas, population density versus drone range is so low that it won't be profitable to roll out in the country either.

In other words, actual widescale rollout won't be profitable except maybe for small towns full of electronics nerds (who need that replacement CPU fan/SSD immediately) that are far away from electronics stores. What with some tech companies moving from Silicon Valley to random rural areas, these might actually exist, but probably not enough to justify the R&D. And they'd be betting no Fry's/Best Buy opens nearby. They could target night owls that need a replacement before the retail store opens, but this has to be a small portion of purchases (and they're betting the Fry's doesn't go 24 hour).

RadioShack died

[tepples]

actual widescale rollout won't be profitable except maybe for small towns full of electronics nerds (who need that replacement CPU fan/SSD immediately) that are far away from electronics stores.

I guess it depends on what exactly is meant by "electronics stores", especially after RadioShack died.

Over optimisim

[DarkOx]

The tech guys usually are not wrong they just believe time to mass market is shorter than it usually is. The first wave investors get burned the same way.

Example in 99 IBM predicted in a Super Bowl ad that checkout free grocery stores were literally right around the corner. Here we are in 2018 and Amazon (Notably not IBM) has finally delivered a few test stores.

Touch Screen Smart Phones. RIM/Microsoft/Handspring etc all tried it; with first gen stuff that really was not far behind iPhone 1 in terms of tech; just lacked polish. All are in the dust bin of history as far as those products go; Apple late to party road theirs to become the most valuable company on earth.

You could say similar things about other tech; MITS never really exactly cleaned up on the Altair but the S100 market was huge for a while. How many Altos did Xerox sell? Not many compared to the number of Macintosh machines that rolled out.

There is a tendency to bring tech out that falls just short of good enough for mass market. You tend to over look your babies flaws and you tend to justify the deficiencies. Its like most power doors on cars. Great idea super handy when you have big bag of groceries in your arms etc. The fist gen stuff in he late 70's 80's though was terrible - nobody had 37 seconds to stand there why their door opened. The people working on that stuff thought probably felt they'd solved the problems; until the market told them "not quite" not its a popular feature

huh

[cascadingstylesheet]

Ah, the politician timescale ... sorta near but safely 9at the time) far away.

I notice that true AI, the dying off of us old Republicans, and my big premium savings from Obamacare are a little overdue as well.

Bogus Informercial

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon's overhyped drone delivery service was shown on "60 Minutes" just before Christmas 2013. This was nothing more than Amazon promoting its brand and existing services to potential customers right before the biggest shopping holiday of the year. CBS's "60 Minutes" was complicit by giving Amazon that much free publicity and marketing. "60 Minutes" had lost a ton of credibility when their "rising star" young, pretty, blonde British female journalist got busted for airing a year-long investigation about

Prediction turns out wrong

[91degrees]

So it turns out that Bezos can not predict the future. Maybe he's just human.

I think they'll have to push through some

[mark_reh]

legislation banning private ownership of guns if they want to be able to deliver packages with drones, otherwise too many "gun enthusiasts" will use them for target practice.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama aren't coming for your guns- Jeff Bezos is.... and even the NRA/gun lobby (same thing) doesn't have the resources to stop him.

Cause of delay

[Tablizer]

Flying cars and commuters with jet packs are blocking the drones' paths.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

[nehumanuscrede]

Amazon promised drone delivery.
Verizon promised fiber to every home. ( They also promised not to break Tumblr )
Google promised the same thing.
Every new generation of politician promises to fix and clean up the system.
Clapper promised the NSA doesn't spy on US citizens.
Popular Mechanics promised us flying cars and jetpacks for all

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Life is full of unfulfilled promises. The sooner you understand that, the less disappointed you will be.

Older People Know the Hype

[eepok]

Older people know the hype because they actually understand the current limitations of technology, the speed of technological advancement, the cost to research and mass produce, the required cost for consumers, and then reasonable alternatives that already exist.

- Flying cars
- Jetpacks
- Helicopters for everyone
- Drone delivery
- Personal automated drone cameramen
- (Actual) Artificial Intelligence
- Level 4/5 Autonomous Vehicles
- 3D Printing EVERYTHING
- Funding an "EV for the people" from the profits raised by

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Re:

[RespekMyAthorati]

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[fishchin6900]

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