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Comment by kevindamm | Hacker News Reader

I'm not really a supporter of drone deliveries but, to me, the benefits also include fewer delivery trucks on the roads. And, I don't know how many last-mile trucks are EVs but the drones don't run on gasoline, right?

There are benefits other than the immediacy of delivery, but the noise pollution is too much for me, too.

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I am curious how the math works out with respect to the delivery trucks. It seems like, ounce for ounce, it’s cheaper to move matter across the ground than to yeet it through the sky. Each delivery truck with 100 orders inside represents some number of passenger cars that are avoiding a trip to the store—and those fleets lend themselves well to electrification (cf. Rivian’s fleet for Prime [0])

But as you point out, there’s certainly a crossover point as the delivery cadence shortens, where you can’t collect 100 orders and aggregate them into a single route: if we’re really dispatching a whole vehicle per order per household, maybe drones are the realistic way. Why couldn’t they be drone bike-messengers or something, though?

[0] > In 2024, Amazon’s [electric] vans from Rivian delivered more than 1 billion packages to customers in the U.S. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/everything-y... - boy that would be a lot of flying chainsaws.

Road-based delivery requires less energy than air-based delivery, under the assumption that the roads exist (which they do, because of other reasons). This is simple physics.

I see no advantage to drones in areas with a road network. Vanity, yes, and cool sci-fi memes, but physics isn't just a good idea, it is the law.

I dont think that is necessarily the case. There are lots of practical logistics considerations that affect each around routing an capacity.

By way of example, rolling is more efficient than flying, but I would be shocked if flying an 80lb drone 1 mile over houses if it wasnt more efficient than driving a 10,000 lb van 2 miles on a grid, with dozens of stops.

Independent from Physics, there is financial efficiency, which has its own set of arbitrary variables.

> physics isn't just a good idea, it is the law.

That is awesome.

Trucks running on gasoline is a very small fraction of the climate crisis. Manufacture, maintenance, and scrappage of trucks/drones/whatever delivery device you choose (along with generating the power needed to run them) dwarfs tailpipe emissions.

I'm just pointing out the additional benefits besides the immediacy of delivery. Add to that list reducing the amount of tire chemicals emitted. Add reducing the congestion on the roads for commuters and emergency response vehicles. If the noise pollution had extremely low impact, these benefits would be worth mentioning whether or not it solves the climate crisis on its own (and I understand it wouldn't come close).

But, admittedly, I'm taking a rather naïve view here, assuming drones would displace trucks, but in reality they would likely add to the deployment, not replace it. Some packages are likely too big, or need a signature, or exceed drone delivery capacity, etc. There is a forcing function on the business (not logistics) view, the automation of the drones mean there might be fewer trucks but there might be more deliveries ordered as a result, too.

Fair enough, but I feel there are more issues which are not being talked about here. How many drones will fail mid flight and become unrecovereable? How many drones will crash mid flight? Will there be teams of people dispatched to clear up this waste or will we just start getting used to big piles of plastic and metal lying on the ground wherever we go?

What about the new industry and all the factories that will need to spring up to build these drones, maintain them, and replace them?

Everyone here is just focussing on the noise, but behind this is a massive industry using loads of power and materials and causing loads more waste, just so people can get cookies on the same day.

Oh, we don't have the space for all the tangential issues this touches on. Here's food for thought, what about the capacity and expertise developed by tackling the issues you mentioned?

The software refinement and supporting industry would be indispensable for any war-involved nation wishing to deploy a drone battalion -- as a conscientious objector I wouldn't personally want to work on drones to that end, but I have to acknowledge the potential there.

> what about the capacity and expertise developed by tackling the issues you mentioned? The software refinement and supporting industry would be indispensable for any war-involved nation wishing to deploy a drone battalion.

I would say that considering there have been plenty of military supply companies who have been researching, building and providing drones and UAVs to the military for decades, that Amazons effort for last mile grocery delivery will never feed into a drone battalion invasion in a war.

Look at Anduril, or Evolve Dynamics for examples of this.

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