shares in this article
Amazon wanted to be the pioneer in drone logistics
The Amazon drone project has made little progress for years
Competitors such as Google Wings and Walmart, on the other hand, have started their first pilot projects
Jeff Bezos is known for innovative ideas that he wants to implement as quickly as possible – and often without regard to losses, as he is often accused of. This is how Amazon grew from a small bookshop in the US state of Washington to a global tech giant that is a global leader in many growth areas, from online trading to streaming services and drug sales to cloud software. In December 2013, Bezos, who has since been ousted from the position of the richest person in the world by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, caused a media sensation.
Bezos announced Amazon’s drone program in 2013
In late 2013, Bezos promised the world public that by 2018 many orders in the US would be delivered with drones. As a result, the delivery time will be reduced to just 30 minutes, and deliveries of medicines, snacks and baby items by drone will become the standard. To this end, Bezos founded the Amazon subsidiary Prime Air, which was to turn the drone project into reality. As the Swiss “Handelzeitung” recently reported, more than 1,000 employees are currently working on innovations relating to logistics drones. Amazon is said to have already invested over 2 billion US dollars in research and development of the drone program. So the question doesn’t seem far-fetched as to why Amazon still hasn’t been able to manage deliveries by drone – apart from a few moderately successful test flights.
The drone project still has many technical deficiencies
Certainly the biggest problem with the Amazon drones is the lack of proof of the airworthiness of the drones. In June 2021, the crash of a 40-kilogram Amazon drone at the Oregon test site resulted in a bushfire that burned 25 hectares of forest. An Amazon spokesman told “Bloomberg” that nobody was ever injured by the drone flights – but the flight accidents involving the test drones are certainly not advertising for approval of drone logistics traffic by the US air traffic authority. “It’s going to take someone killed or maimed for them to take these security issues seriously,” said Cheddi Skeete, a former Amazon drone project manager who gave Bloomberg some information about the drone project. Skeete is not the only critical (former) employee: Many complained that Amazon “puts speed ahead of security, as it often does, in order to be the first on the market,” as the “Handelzeitung” writes.
In addition to Amazon, Alphabet subsidiary Google Wings, Walmart and UPS are also researching similar drone projects. So far, however, Amazon is far from enjoying the first mover advantages, despite the high investments. In fact, Google Wings recently launched a pilot project in Dallas using drones to send small packages within a 1.2 kilometer radius. The US supermarket giant Walmart has already tested the first deliveries by drone and, like Google Wings, seems to be significantly further than Amazon Air Prime.
Official approval of drone traffic is far from in sight
However, in view of the often disappointing results of drone test flights, US approval for nationwide drone logistics traffic without pilot supervision is extremely unlikely, at least in the next few years. A regulation by the US Federal Aviation Administration from 2015 states that piloting a drone requires a corresponding flight permit and – even more problematic for Amazon & Co. – the drone must always be within the pilot’s field of vision. In addition, the drone may only be flown during the day and must never be above groups of people. In fact, these strict regulations mean nothing less than a ban on logistics drone traffic. A comprehensive revision of these requirements is not to be expected, at least given the current technical status of drones.
Despite the many hurdles: Amazon wants to stick to the drone project
After all: Amazon is far from giving up the project. As of March 2020, the program is led by David Carbon, a former Boeing executive known for his risk-taking innovations. Compared to its predecessor Gur Kimchi, Carbon is said to pay even less attention to safety concerns. In addition, Carbon laid off more than 200 employees in the first year alone, according to the “Handelzeitung”.
Amazon wants to open several new test sites under Carbons gide, part of the production has now been relocated to England, France and Costa Rica. The tech giant is also planning 12,000 test flights this year. At the moment, however, this goal is still a long way off: According to the “Handelzeitung”, there were only 200 such test flights in the first two months of the year. An important reason for Amazon’s enthusiasm for the project is certainly that drone transport eliminated the high costs for the driver. The drones are potentially capable of transporting packages weighing up to 2.3 kilograms within a range of up to 11 kilometers. 85 percent of all Amazon orders weigh less than 2.3 kilograms. Theoretically, a high proportion of Amazon’s goods could be shipped by drone. However, it will certainly be a few years before we get to that point, since many further technical developments and formal approvals are a fundamental prerequisite for this.
Editorial office finanzen.net
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
No data
More news about Amazon
Image sources: BobNoah / Shutterstock.com, Dmitry Kalinovsky / Shutterstock.com