Hacker News Reader

Comment by wiremine | Hacker News Reader

Just watched the 60 minutes segment: Bezos say they won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, likely 2016. (Edit: as the commenter below pointed out, I misheard the timeframe: is is 4-5 years out)

He said the range is 10 miles, which is good enough for most residential areas. They are aiming for delivery in 30 minutes. The drones are autonomous: you plug in the GPS coordinates and away they go.

The biggest challenge (again, according to Bezos) is the redundancy, "making sure it doesn't land on people's heads."

My question is: why announce this now, 2 to 3 (or more) years out? Are they gearing up to get governmental regulations?

View on HN

I don't know where you heard 2016, he said 4-5 years, and that's being optimistic. From the transcript:

Jeff Bezos: And, you know, I don’t want anybody to think this is just around the corner. This is years of additional work from this point. But this is…

Charlie Rose: But will ‘years’ mean five, 10?

Jeff Bezos: I think, I, I am, I’m an optimist Charlie. I know it can’t be before 2015, because that’s the earliest we could get the rules from the FAA. My guess is that’s, that’s probably a little optimistic. But could it be, you know, four, five years? I think so. It will work, and it will happen, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

>> why announce this now, 2 to 3 (or more) years out? Are they gearing up to get governmental regulations?

My guess: if the public is clearly excited, it puts more pressure on regulators to approve it.

Which is otherwise a hard sell, especially when you think of what it means for security if autonomous drones are a normal sight.

I think Bezos is wondering how society will respond. It is up to us. Some will welcome this as an improvement in delivery efficiency and service. Some will say it will make our cities crowded and noisy not only on the streets with cars and trucks, but in the sky too.

I like my blue silent sky. I recall scenes of sci-fi worlds like the 5th Element. I suggest we tax externalities. If you order by sky, you'll create visual and noise pollution to many people, and you should pay a tax for this, to be shared by the community as a whole.

My take is that Bezos wants to see how society will respond to this. A high tax would kill his ROI, and he won't invest much in R&D. If we say "Nice! We want this" he will double down.

> I like my blue silent sky. I recall scenes of sci-fi worlds like the 5th Element. I suggest we tax externalities. If you order by sky, you'll create visual and noise pollution to many people, and you should pay a tax for this, to be shared by the community as a whole.

HA! Good luck on that.

You must live nowhere near anywhere. My sky is plenty filled with buildings, airplanes, helicopters, and even the occasional hot air balloon.

You keep your taxes to yourself. I have a package that needs delivering in under 30 minutes by drone.

"needs"

It seems like they only want to put pressure on the FAA. 3/4 FAQs mention the FAA.

As far as range goes, you could Pony Express it with a series of waystations.

why not just use the delivery (UPS/Fedex/etc) trucks as a base station for the drones?

Pull in to a neighborhood of, say, 500 residents; Say you have about 100 packages to deliver... Set up 5 drones to deliver packages. Even if it takes 60 seconds on average for each drone to deliver and return, it probably is still much faster than the truck driver having to drive into every street, stop, grab the right package, drop it off, and go back to the truck and repeat.

I have a feeling they are doing it to garner support for drones in general, which will help them with the FDA when it comes to getting approval.

FDA? FAA?

I hope you mean FAA.

This is a startup opportunity. Amazon's competitors will want a drone delivery service even if they can't build the drones or service themselves.

Except that Amazon will likely offer Drones As A Service, too. They have a pretty solid track record of offering their own technologies widely, even to competitors.

It also gives them control of the conversation of drones, which, let's just say, hasn't exactly been in your favour, if you're a drone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com