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Amazon Ends California Drone Deliveries (techcrunch.com) 29

Posted by msmash from the tough-click dept.
Amazon confirmed it is ending Prime Air drone delivery operations in Lockeford, California. The Central California town of 3,500 was the company's second U.S. drone delivery site, after College Station, Texas. Operations were announced in June 2022. From a report: The retail giant is not offering details around the setback, only noting, "We'll offer all current employees opportunities at other sites, and will continue to serve customers in Lockeford with other delivery methods. We want to thank the community for all their support and feedback over the past few years."

College Station deliveries will continue, along with a forthcoming site in Tolleson, Arizona set to kick off deliveries later this year. Tolleson, a city of just over 7,000, is located in Maricopa County, in the western portion of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Prime Air's arrival brings same-day deliveries to Amazon customers in the region, courtesy of a hybrid fulfillment center/delivery station. The company says it will be contacting impacted customers when the service is up and running. There's no specific information on timing beyond "this year," owing, in part, to ongoing negotiations with both local officials and the FAA required to deploy in the airspace.
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Amazon Ends California Drone Deliveries More

Amazon Ends California Drone Deliveries

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  • Dumb idea from day 1 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MooseTick ( 895855 ) on Monday April 22, 2024 @03:21PM (#64415292) Homepage

    While this sounds cool and futuristic, its a dumb idea for several reason...

    1. How could it deliver to anyplace that isn't a wide open yard?
    2. What happens when it crashes? Especially if it damages property or injures someone.
    3. What happens when kids think its fun/funny to throw things at them?
    4. How could it deliver to anyone beyond street level?
    5. This would have severe weight restrictions and not be useful for a large % of items.
    6. This would have issues delivering in a variety of weather/wind conditions.
    7. Thieves would eventually target these for what they carry as well as the drones themselves.
    8. Customers don't want their good delivered to the middle of their yard. They want them discretely placed by a door.
    9. Urban areas are too dense for these and most rural areas are too far apart.

    The real "drone" deliveries will be by USPS/UPS/FedEx via trucks once FSD is available. They will text people to alert they are coming soon. Once confirmed they will arrived and wait a time period for the recipient to collect the package from the truck using a code. Machinery in the truck will place the item in a locker where it can be retrieved from once the code is entered. Meanwhile, the truck is already texting the next recipient or 2 and prepping to deliver the next item. This can run 24/7 without the need for couriers or drivers. All it needs is someone to load the truck. If customers want something hand delivered, they can/will pay an upcharge. If they work 2nd shift and want their item delivered at 2AM, its no issue and no overtime pay will be required. This is the future. The biggest downside is the several million couriers/drivers whose jobs won't exist in 20 years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rskbrkr ( 824653 )

      7. Thieves would eventually target these for what they carry as well as the drones themselves.
      8. Customers don't want their good delivered to the middle of their yard. They want them discretely placed by a door.

      Thieves already follow UPS and Amazon delivery vehicles. And, I would very much prefer to have packages delivered to the middle of my backyard instead of at the front door precisely because of theft. Point 2 is the deal killer though. Crashes, even if extremely rare, are likely too risky from a legal perspective.

      • Crashes, even if extremely rare, are likely too risky from a legal perspective.

        On the other hand, that Amazon delivery van could run over your child or dog out on the street, or veer out of control and smash into your living room. Even if such things are extremely rare, using multi-ton vehicles to deliver Amazon packages is likely too risky from a legal perspective.

        Or, maybe Amazon can purchase this thing called "insurance" ...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rskbrkr ( 824653 )
          The legal risk arises from what a jury would do, not logic or data. The delivery van is probably more likely to seriously injure someone. But, far less likely to make it into the nightly news or get a jury's attention if Amazon is ever sued. The first time a drone crashes; national news. The lawyers would have a field day claiming how Amazon is making everyone a guinea pig by testing overhead flights by drones. Here in San Francisco, half the city is up in arms about autonomous driving even though Waym

          • Re:Dumb idea from day 1 (Score:4, Informative)

            by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Monday April 22, 2024 @05:55PM (#64415790)

            The first time a drone crashes; national news.

            You mean like this one [bloomberg.com]?
            Or this one [aiaaic.org]?

            There have already been a few delivery drone crashes. Some have caused real damage. But no, the lawyers didn't have a field day. Damages were paid out by Amazon and the world went on without it being widespread national news.

            half the city is up in arms about autonomous driving even though Waymo is already safer than human drivers and Cruise likely no worse.

            The metrics showing autonomous cars are safer don't include things like blocking emergency vehicles by stopping in the middle of the road, accidents caused by the traffic jam the stopped autonomous car caused and so forth.

            The default behavior is to stop in the middle of the street when the autonomous driving fails and wait for a remote operator to take over the vehicle and move it out of the way, but the remote operator depends on cell phone signals to send data back and forth. A traffic jam (or a music festival [sfchronicle.com]) concentrates a lot of other people in the area and the cell towers quickly become overwhelmed and boom... more stopped autonomous cars.

            It's not fear of the new and unfamiliar. It's the documented problems that have been caused already with a very limited number of vehicles on the road. It's not hard to predict the disaster that would happen if they actually made up a significant percentage of the traffic.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rskbrkr ( 824653 )

              The first time a drone crashes; national news.

              You mean like this one [bloomberg.com]? Or this one [aiaaic.org]?

              There have already been a few delivery drone crashes. Some have caused real damage. But no, the lawyers didn't have a field day. Damages were paid out by Amazon and the world went on without it being widespread national news.

              "According to Bloomberg, Amazon Prime Air drones crashed five times in four months in 2021 at the company’s testing site in Pendleton, Oregon. These included a crash in which a drone had lost its propeller, which the FAA was unable to investigate as Amazon had reportedly cleaned up the wreckage before the regulator arrived on the scene."

              I'm not sure that news article about pre-launch crashes at their private test site without any danger to the general public is the support for your position you thin

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
                wow cleaning up wreckage before the FAA arives, isn't that interfering with an investigation, I certainly hope mega fines where issued (like the kind of mega fines the prject an maby even amazon investors nitice

            • A traffic jam (or a music festival) concentrates a lot of other people in the area and the cell towers quickly become overwhelmed and boom... more stopped autonomous cars.

              Hence why we need a mesh networking phone system, so that when you get more subscribers in an area you get more bandwidth, carrying that traffic node to node until it reaches another cell site. But the providers haven't figured out a way to lock us into their infrastructure while doing that yet...

        • Pretty sure drones crash a lot more than vehicles. Although in our current culture, if automobiles were invented today, they'd probably be like airplanes. The govt making a license not easy to acquire, expensive, and thus relatively rare.

      • I find Amazon deliveries inevitably annoying. Made an order, deliberately chose the slooow delivery option (cheapest), they claimed delivery on Saturday, which was fine with me, I would be home. Instead it was delivered on Tuesday, while I was at work, with many many hours of it sitting on the welcome mat in a busy condo complex with lots of people walking past. Similar things happened in the past; their estimated delivery date is unreliable.

        Amazon probably thinks to themselves "We delivered early! Kif,

        • Yeah, I tried their "combine your order, deliver on Amazon day, less deliveries!" option a few times when the date would be convenient. And had one too many times where they still sent separate boxes early. And, like you, had a box sitting out all day.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        ot you know arange deliveries when you are home so people can't puick your packages from your front door, as anoying as it is wasting time waiting for deliveries it sort of mitigates theaft and it allso gives you a petter case when reoirting damaged goods

    • 1. How could it deliver to anyplace that isn't a wide open yard?

      * Mostly rural and suburban deliveries won't have this problem. If it can't deliver then it will swtich to some other delivery method.

      2. What happens when it crashes? Especially if it damages property or injures someone.

      * Uh, some sort of liability insurance payout. What happens when there's a car accident?

      3. What happens when kids think its fun/funny to throw things at them?

      * This hasn't happened in testing so far, so presumably it would be ra

    • 1) Open yard or apartment roof top. It won't cover everyone but there are a lot of people that do have yards or buildings that could accommodate an air delivery and would likely want the package delivered there rather than on their front porch visible to pirates driving by. This was never supposed to replace all deliveries by vans and trucks. Judging it as a universal replacement isn't appropriate.
      2) Same thing that happens when a vans or semi trucks crash. Insurance covers it.
      3) ^see #2
      4) ^see #1
      5) ^

    • While this sounds cool and futuristic, its a dumb idea for several reason...

      1. How could it deliver to anyplace that isn't a wide open yard? 2. What happens when it crashes? Especially if it damages property or injures someone. 3. What happens when kids think its fun/funny to throw things at them? 4. How could it deliver to anyone beyond street level? 5. This would have severe weight restrictions and not be useful for a large % of items. 6. This would have issues delivering in a variety of weather/wind conditions. 7. Thieves would eventually target these for what they carry as well as the drones themselves. 8. Customers don't want their good delivered to the middle of their yard. They want them discretely placed by a door. 9. Urban areas are too dense for these and most rural areas are too far apart.

      The real "drone" deliveries will be by USPS/UPS/FedEx via trucks once FSD is available. They will text people to alert they are coming soon. Once confirmed they will arrived and wait a time period for the recipient to collect the package from the truck using a code. Machinery in the truck will place the item in a locker where it can be retrieved from once the code is entered. Meanwhile, the truck is already texting the next recipient or 2 and prepping to deliver the next item. This can run 24/7 without the need for couriers or drivers. All it needs is someone to load the truck. If customers want something hand delivered, they can/will pay an upcharge. If they work 2nd shift and want their item delivered at 2AM, its no issue and no overtime pay will be required. This is the future. The biggest downside is the several million couriers/drivers whose jobs won't exist in 20 years.

      If the self driving truck has to wait for each person to come and get their package from a 'locker', the idea is dead before it even starts. By the time it gets to the last person for the day, it will be showing up at 4 a.m. No Thanks.

      • The truck won't wait long. That's why its texting ahead. Its giving a tight eta and confirming someone is there. Then it would wait 10-15 minutes tops. If no one shows up, its already got the next stop set up where the recipient states they are home and able to retrieve the package. If they aren't home, they could provide a time window for when they will be and the package can be delivered then. If you are a "no show" too many times, you don't get home delivery. Those people will be directed to a locker or

    • Most of these issues are easily solved. If Slashdot taught me anything though, its not to solve problems for free. If I can solve it, a muti billion dollar company certainly can. Stop being such a negative Nancy.
      Heck 3 and 7 can be solved easily by attaching a glock, and I'm not even warmed up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Well that would probably classify the drone as military, and the airforce would not like that, thay want to have a monopoly on shooty aircraft of any kind

    • Not to mention all the areas drones like this are not allowed to fly near (airports, jails, military sites, sensitive areas, government buildings etc)

  • Big surprise (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday April 22, 2024 @04:21PM (#64415554)

    Drone delivery would only work in locations in perfect weather, with no nearby hazards, no flight paths / air restrictions, where the item is light enough, and in stock and close enough to a recipient who will pay stupid money to receive it fast. In other words, a diminishingly small set of customers.

  • Epic fail snatching defeat from the jaws of success like Amazon Go. I never understood their investment in tiny markets that aren't representative of the most vital markets. Instead of trialing it in places that don't matter, they should've just begun rolling it out on a zipcode by zipcode basis in the most profitable areas. Hello-duh!

  • My theory (Score:3)

    by belmolis ( 702863 ) <billposer@@@alum...mit...edu> on Monday April 22, 2024 @06:16PM (#64415828) Homepage
    My theory is that they're too embarrassed to let it be known that the drones are being taken down by condors. :)

    • My theory is that they're too embarrassed to let it be known that the drones are being taken down by condors. :)

      Condors are trying to impress potential mates with looted Amazon deliveries?

      Very worrying.

  • Amazon drones can save you money on buying clay pigeons.

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