Walmart Plans To Expand Drone Delivery To Six States this Year (techcrunch.com) 36
An anonymous reader shares a report: Drone delivery has been a long time coming, but its actual implementation has largely arrived in fits and starts. Some companies (Alphabet's Wing) have made decent headway, while others (Amazon) have struggled. There are still plenty of issues to contend with ahead of any sort of mainstream adoption, from regulation to congestion to safety concerns. But a number of parties have found small successes in limited markets. Today, Walmart is expanding its own investment, announcing plans to extend its partnership with DroneUp to include 34 sites across six states. The planned rollout is set to be completed by the end of the year, at which point it will -- theoretically -- cover up to 4 million U.S. households. The retailer announced an investment in the 6-year-old startup late last year, following trial deliveries of COVID-19 testing kits. Early trials were conducted in Bentonville, Arkansas. This year, Arizona, Florida, Texas and DroneUp's native Virginia are being added to the list. Once online, customers will be able to choose from tens of thousands of products, from Tylenol to hot dog buns, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
eh, human in car or delivery truck making deliveries is much more expensive than an electric drone for small items anyway. It's a no-brainer.
Rand did study for UPS in Minneapolis in 2017, drones of that time would be able to 20 percent of the deliveries, savings from 13 less trucks in fleet besides saving 6 percent of fuel costs.
Battery tech is better, savings should be more now since range and weight capacity would have increased in last 5 years.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/rese... [rand.org]
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
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Illegal discharging firearms in large cities where these would be deployed, not a cost effective thing for rural areas, and there would be video feeds from multiple drones to catch perps.
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Illegal discharging firearms in large cities where these would be deployed, not a cost effective thing for rural areas, and there would be video feeds from multiple drones to catch perps.
Yes, that's why no one is shot in a big city, it's illegal to discharge a firearm there!
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Risk vs reward. Most shooting in cities is financially motived or gang violence - not the "Yee-haw" recreational (and sometimes reckless) discharging of firearms you see in rural areas.
Out in the rural parts I used to joke that a road sign wasn't legal if it hadn't been peppered by buckshot yet.
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Most shooting in cities is financially motived or gang violence
Uh huh: https://www.police1.com/chiefs... [police1.com]
Also last I checked, package piracy was a financially motivated crime, yes?
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You are laughable bringing up something where "a few" people are struck, compared to the thousands a year killed by thugs in inner cities.
Have you no comprehension of relative magnitudes? You bring up irrelevant and inconsequential thing.
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Risk vs reward. Most shooting in cities is financially motived or gang violence - not the "Yee-haw" recreational (and sometimes reckless) discharging of firearms you see in rural areas.
Has nothing to do with relative magnitude nor how many people are injured (wtf are you even trying to argue, given the context, with that bullshit response?) It proves that yes, people in cities will "Yee-haw" shoot shit for fun.
Columbus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Indianapolis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Flint - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Houston - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Detroit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
And that is just 5 minute
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Never said it didn't happen at all, but three to five people a year getting hit, with one or two deaths doesn't compare at all to thousands maimed and killed by thugs. Why can't your brain understand risk and relative magnitudes?
Drones have already been used for apartment deliveries, all issues solved and already being done in cities all over world. It only makes sense in large cities. People with brains for math, unlike you, have done the studies and are moving foward.
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Never said it didn't happen at all, but three to five people a year getting hit, with one or two deaths doesn't compare at all to thousands maimed and killed by thugs. Why can't your brain understand risk and relative magnitudes?
Wow, you are a moron who apparently doesn't understand how risk/reward actually works. I just gave you numerous examples of high risk, no reward behavior involving firearms in cities. Magnitude, again, has nothing to do with it. Zip.Zilch. Nada. Also, again, what the fuck do you think injuries has to do with any of this? I'm serious, in the context of people willing to shoot at drones tell me what your pea brain thinks that has to do with anything. The fact that plenty of people are willing to fire off wea
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thugs shoot each other with handguns, not the most suitable weapon for shooting flying drones, and the drones will have cameras. Maybe shooting delivery vehicles now is just as big a risk?
Maybe the big companies avoid the worst neighborhoods?
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Drones aren't cheap so those rednecks will get slapped with a felony charge.
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Re: Why? (Score:2)
What I dont buy is that hovering on a cushion of air is always going to be energy cheaper than something that delivers via the equivalent of a self driving bike. But on the other hand if its a redneck choice between driving the dollar-a-mile coal roller 20 mi to the store and back to get his prescription and back, vs $.50 in electricity for a few kilowatt hours for drone to do the same, its a big win for the rednecks.
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I ordered a 22 pound sack of cat food from Amazon Prime. It arrived *IN A BOX* delivered by overnight postal mail. I was shocked at the amount of resources wasted to get that bag to me.
While that was unintentional, now I want to see a swarm of drones struggling to carry a huge bag of cat food.
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that's not where drone is used and not what they are advocated for I order tiny things and they come in boxes, and sometimes the truck only going to my house on a stretch of few blocks. That is waste of money, and sane companies are seeing a way to deliver the small stuff and save having not having some of the trucks with maintenance, drivers, fuel, and boxes wasted.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the point of this, why does everyone seem hell bent on drone delivery? In what way is this useful or even possible for many houses/apartments? Is this anything other than a huge waste of money (although I'm sure Walmart has plenty of that to waste if they feel like it...)?
Drones have a very limited payload they can physically carry. That tends to direct this new offering towards very specific markets, with medicine being one of them. Ever wonder how many lives could be saved with telemedicine and drone Rx deliveries within an hour? I don't.
People are not "hell-bent" on drone delivery. They're more hell-bent on solving known problems. You want to decrease the demand on oil and pollution caused by ICE-vehicle deliveries all day, every day? Well, the answer is probably flying in front of you. Now we just have to train Amazon to not pack a coin battery in a box big enough for a deep freezer.
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I'm pretty sure ICE and pollution not a concern for Amazon, it's the money savings for small things over drivers and trucks. Your coin batteries could be in envelope with a drone, natural selection against oversized boxes
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I'm pretty sure ICE and pollution not a concern for Amazon, it's the money savings for small things over drivers and trucks.
Amazon pays for gasoline just as we do, with diesel-powered deliveries being even higher in price. And soon, governments will start targeting businesses that do not take enough steps to prevent pollution as those who don't implement clean alternatives morph into a bad excuse.
Your coin batteries could be in envelope with a drone, natural selection against oversized boxes
Yup, but my coin batteries could also be delivered in an envelope today, but they're often not. There's nothing "natural" about the corruption in the industry pimping cardboard and plastic-wrapped everything.
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I am a user/abuser of Amazon Prime delivery. And the reality is that for upwards of 90% of the stuff ordered, including medicine, there is no need for it to come in 1 day, 2 days, or within an hour. Most of it is just our crazy need for instant gratification at every turn. If we do everything our lizard part of our brains demand of us, we will be worse off, and live in a society....well pretty much like today. All the old-school nastiness of brutish behavior (e.g. Putin re-enacting WWII) plus the benefi
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I am a user/abuser of Amazon Prime delivery. And the reality is that for upwards of 90% of the stuff ordered, including medicine, there is no need for it to come in 1 day, 2 days, or within an hour...And did I mention ordering less crap? For me that's a lot of electronic components and the like I just never get around to using.
The former is a problem that could perhaps be addressed to combat waste. No doubt.
The latter however, is a different kind of problem that isn't readily solved by "fixing" Prime. Ironically, it's also kind of the cause of the former.
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Fully understand. Personally I'm not sure why Amazon and Walmart are not taking steps to promote these kinds of uses, especially when Walmart is already heavily invested (and approved) for Rx services. They would probably find a lot more traction delivering life-saving treatments rather than fulfilling some gamers dream of a bag of M&Ms air-dropped directly into a non-dominant hand before the next match.
Another box to check off. (Score:2)
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You won't live a in city because a drone might deliver toothpaste to someone?
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drones for delivery (Score:1)