Are Delivery Drones Commercially Viable? Iceland Is About to Find Out | Hacker News Reader

Are Delivery Drones Commercially Viable? Iceland Is About to Find Out

spectrum.ieee.org

35 pointsNicoJuicy18 comments

> Delivery is around US $7. That’s enough to cover operational costs, says Maron Kristófersson, the chief executive officer of Aha. “The electricity comes to 25 cents,” he says.

> A delivery can be completed in as little as 4 minutes, versus 25 minutes when delivering by road, under heavy traffic. That’s perfect for hot food (burgers are the most popular item), but customers also seem to value it for groceries (where bananas rule) and hardware (mostly electronics).

Damn. $7 for getting the delivery time to 5 mins from 25 is actually quite impressive. Assuming this scales well (the hard part, I'd guess) actually seems quite viable...

> They fly according to GPS coordinates, along routes certified free of trees, buildings, and other impediments.

> The routes are surveyed and reviewed constantly to avoid new construction. To further decrease the risk, the drones are directed over water and unpopulated industrial areas as much as possible.

I don't know how much Reykjavík increases each year, but given a population of around 125k persons, probably there isn't a boom in skyscrapers.

There is a massive building boom in Reykjavik right now. There is new construction everywhere.

edit: as far as I know, the boom is not supporting a growing permanent population, but a massive increase in tourism over the last 5-ish years.

Their mountains keep moving around. ;-)

> Aha’s cook loads the food onto the drone.

>enough to cover the outer ring of Reykjavik from Aha’s operations center in the middle of town.

So they're also running a delivery-only restaurant and have presumably made wholesale contracts with grocery and electronics suppliers? I suppose the next step is contracting with existing stores to provide delivery for someone else's goods.

I thought about how to design pizza delivery drones and came to the conclusion that perhaps the best approach would be to make a very heavy armored tank, with a pizza oven built in.

JIT pizza delivery - will probably be a thing some day

I was just working from the principle that lightweight ground drones containing pizza will get nicked and flying pizza will get shot down and nicked, but it isn't fair to use weaponry just to defend a pizza and a drone, so the best approach is to make it heavy enough not to get nicked, at which point you might as well put the oven in there too.

I mean this might happen a few times, but considering it’s still a crime to shoot an expensive drone out of the air, you probably don’t want a conviction for shooting down a drone just because you’re Jonesing for some Dominoes.

Spoken like someone who wouldn't shoot down a drone, the kind of people who would do not think along these lines.

I’d definitely shoot down a drone if it was hovering over my back yard while my daughter was sunbathing, which is one of the cases that was brought to court.

in much the same way that the pizza delivery driver could just drive home and take his truck and the pizzas. Or that someone could 'just' rob an armoured truck taking money to a bank.

Why don't people do it? Generally, very few people commit crimes in the first place. Especially if you make it difficult, and extra-especially if they are backed up by rule of law in your country.

More people do it if it is easier. For example, far more people steal bikes than cars. Catching a drone with a pellet and a net and taking the pizza out isn't exactly unthinkable. Especially if you compare it to taking boltcutters to a bike lock (or a saw) and selling it for basically the price of a pizza.

Would you eat a pizza that's been dropped by a drone? I wouldn't.

Why not?

The pizza delivery driver probably wants their job more than a stack of pizza and often provides their own vehicle. And robbing armored bank trucks involves attacking people, there isn't the same moral guideline when it comes to robots. Flying pizza robots will be considered 'fair game' by a lot of people.

Already is a thing, has been for a few years now - https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/heres-why-pizza-company...

I just watched a video about them, it's an interesting operation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gADg90GQ-zE

If they could do it all in the truck and cut out the kitchen it would be even better. I guess that's essentially just a food truck that does deliveries though - which might not be a bad idea either.

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