Last month, a supermarket news report detailed a recent partnership between Walmart and Google-owned drone delivery firm Wing centered on the Dallas area, adding drone delivery capability to some 60,000 households. A Wing Supercenter in Frisco, Texas, could be followed up early this year with a second Supercenter in the region.
Wing’s CFO Shannon Nash said deliveries typically take less than 30 minutes, and some have been accomplished in as little as three minutes. She added that a recent survey revealed that 43% of consumers say last-minute grocery runs are their most common reason for an unplanned car trip. Some 74% of consumers reported they are interested in exploring ways to use fast drone delivery to eliminate those impromptu trips. But the service is still limited to small items, not full-on grocery shopping. Wing says its drones are currently capable of carrying just under 3 pounds and can travel at speeds of up to 65 mph.
Nash said that Wing’s drone deliveries have a much lower carbon footprint than surface delivery vehicles. Roughly half of the survey respondents cited concern over their personal impact on the environment associated with either shopping themselves or accessing products through Internet delivery services.
Basically they’re just saying that today, the general public, is just too lazy to do their own shopping. With door dash, Uber eats, and grub hub, American families will be getting ever more lazy.
And fatter and even less healthy. I could put in an order for Bourbon, have it flown to me, and claim that I am just protecting the general public by not driving drunk. But the reality would be completely different….
Now, don’t forget your reduced carbon footprint when you order up your Kentcky Bourbon.
Alleluia ❣
Considering its under three pound payload, I don’t see this as a general shopping replacement. But if you’re in the middle of cooking dinner and you realize that your cilantro has gone bad, this would be a great option. Or you’re a mom alone with the baby and you just used the last diaper. Or numerous other scenarios which, oddly enough, have nothing to do with laziness.
At some point the absurdity of this will fall forward. Just wait until one of these things is making a country delivery and gets tangled in a kids kite string. So much of the unexpected will occur.
Kids dont fly kites anymore. They remain inside and go low batt on their smart phone playing Call to Duty and GTA.
You beat me to it in two ways. First, yes, kids don’t do anything outdoors anymore, and that includes my own teenage niece and nephew whose parents have a nice $90k Malibu wakeboard/ski boat in Florida and don’t use it anymore. They’d both rather stay indoors watching Netflix and play PS5 games respectively.
Second, kites haven’t been sold in stores that have toy sections like Walmart for many years now. I last bought one in 2002 at Walmart for a beach trip. Now you have to get them online just about anywhere.
I wouldn’t worry about the kite – seems that as the drone was hitting the kite, an Amazon delivery van blew a tire, ran off the road, and plowed into the kid.
Yeah, so much of the unexpected can occur.
How many kids were killed last year by being hit by vehicles? And how many by being clobbered by drones?
These are ev’s, right? So what about the effect of me driving my ev for the bourbon run? Ok, i don’t drink, so it’ll be a Martinell’s run..
Getting very tired of hearing all the hype of “carbon footprint” blah blah blah.
…or just maybe if “carbon footprint” awareness drives your every decision, you actually just do without the instant gratification, pick an alternative on hand…or actually use, you know, your feet to walk(?!) over to borrow something from your neighbor…neighbors? (those people that live next to your mother’s house that you’d have met if you ever ventured out of her basement).
It’s all collapsing on itself. Just sit back, eat your popcorn and watch the fallout. So manny fools, so much entertainment.
Wait until that 3 lb. Can of coffee your drone ordered comes crashing down through your neighbor’s patio awning …
Homeowners Insurance covers that right ?
Suuuure… 😜
Wrong. Walmart/Wing would be liable for enroute damages, just as a delivery service would be responsible for any damages that they cause.
Why/how could that not be the case?
Wrong. Research drone liability case laws and pending litigations. “There’s a lot of uncertainty now in the law for those kinds of issues,” said Robert Heverly, associate professor of law at Albany Law School.
Others have expressed concerns about what kinds of data delivery drones could gather on their flights to and from drop-off points. Amazon has a patent for a data analysis system that would use information the drone collected during its flight to help make recommendations for future purchases. For example, if the drone took an image of your dead lawn while it was delivering your package, perhaps you’d get more online ads for fertilizer.
While many local governments forbid the use of drones for surveillance purposes, it’s unclear whether the activities described in Amazon’s data analysis patent would fall under that definition, Holland Michel said.
Current privacy standards were established long before the advent of drones, let alone potential drone delivery operations, he said.
“There are questions around whether these standards need to be updated in light of the fact that we are looking at a near-future where the airspace will be very crowded with drones that are all capturing information,” Holland Michel said.
If a drone has a glitch and drops its package on you, leaving you injured, who’s at fault?
In some cases, existing laws could apply. For example, if a delivery drone dropped a package that hit someone, the drone operator and his or her employer would most likely be liable — in line with standard rules on negligence, Heverly said.
The same would likely apply to a drone that damaged property in the course of a delivery, Heverly said.
But it could get tricky if delivery companies employ subcontractors to operate the drones.
In those cases, the companies could defer responsibility to the contracted operator if something happened, though it depends on how much control the companies have over the individual subcontractors, Heverly said. The more rules and restrictions the company has for its subcontractors, the more the company could be considered the employer, meaning it would take on the liability.
For the person who was hit by the drone, their lawyer would likely sue both parties — the drone operator and the company that hired that operator — and sort out the responsible party through litigation, Heverly said.
How loud is too loud for a drone buzzing through the air?
In April, Wing launched its first air delivery service in Canberra, Australia, but not all of the residents were happy with it. People complained that the drones were too noisy.
The Australian government later found that the decibel level from about 50 feet away was similar to a loud television and exceeded the daytime noise standard for the residential area. Wing developed a quieter propeller and promised other improvements, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. It’s still operating in Canberra.
Small drones can be significantly quieter than larger, professional-quality ones, though the sound from all drones are typically less noticeable the higher they fly, Heverly said. In the United States, he said, regulating drone noise will probably be up to local governments.
Wrong. Please research your extended quotes from Heverly who places potential liability on the company selling the product and/or any subcontractor actually flying the drone – but no liability on the customer who ordered the product.
This scam has obviously run out of suckers (investors) when the CEO has to pull the enviro card to justify something nobody wants. EV cars and eVTOLs are heading the same way. Told ya so.
And all the drones must be maintained by A&P’s
We can say all we want about Americans becoming lazy, but this is technological progress. Amazon’s next day and same day delivery practices changed the entire landscape of online shopping. Gone are the days of having to wait for 10 business days and high shipping costs. Drone delivery is just the next leap forward. This has nothing to do with carbon footprint or electric vs gas. If we can make small gas-powered drones for an equivalent cost, then that would have been a better choice. But for this application, electric drones are a better choice.
Wait until the Karen’s and Dave’s see these drones zooming around their HOA neighborhood. Their wail is worse than two alley cats looking for a one nighter.
Well stated!
Much more likely the Karen’s and Marko’s not in HOA hoods to be doing the howling – follow the incomes, money and education for the greatest use of this drone service, I would say.
How loud is too loud for a drone buzzing through the air?
In April, Wing launched its first air delivery service in Canberra, Australia, but not all of the residents were happy with it. People complained that the drones were too noisy.
The Australian government later found that the decibel level from about 50 feet away was similar to a loud television and exceeded the daytime noise standard for the residential area. Wing developed a quieter propeller and promised other improvements, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. It’s still operating in Canberra.
Small drones can be significantly quieter than larger, professional-quality ones, though the sound from all drones are typically less noticeable the higher they fly, Heverly said. In the United States, he said, regulating drone noise will probably be up to local governments.
It’s also unclear who will be the ultimate arbitrator for these concerns.
The FAA is in charge of aircraft safety, but questions of privacy or trespassing could be left up to the states, said William Breetz, vice president of the Uniform Laws Commission, a nonprofit organization that drafts model legislation for states and began tackling drone laws more than two years ago.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty now in the law for those kinds of issues,” said Robert Heverly, associate professor of law at Albany Law School.
3 pounds? So, a quart of milk and maybe a small box of cornflakes? Total gross profit maybe 50 cents. Drone cost what- $50-75k? I’d think delivery fees will be astronomical unless a lot of subsidizing from Joe Taxpayer. Of course, I’m using math learned in the 60’s.
It would be fine for your heart medicine.
Noise complaints alone will shut this down. You know how much people belly-ache about airport noise. Imagine a fleet of drones delivering bourbon to folks at all hours.
These things don’t have a lot of wind counter-offensive speed, specifically around headwinds. Also, I am curious to know how they’ve been programmed to avoid power lines along the routes up to and including the one going from the street pole to the house.
Do they have an exemption from 14 CFR § 91.119? If they do, I want one (an exemption), too!
Say goodbye to personal safety when anyone can deliver a payload to a doorstep.
Happens to me all the time, with UPS and FedEx being the Prime offenders.
I’ve somehow managed to survive unscathed…
UPS and FedEx are ground based. All the ground based security of fences and barricades and security checks and guards and spikes and closing streets and police and even TSA screening is mute when you can simply fly a drone over all of that.
“Convenience” in general is what brought us to be the way it is LOL. The more automation we make the more people want. The future will be lazy people sitting and verbalizing orders to robots. Robots will do the job. Very “tech” and healthy! LOL what is carbon footprint? more tax to pay for the thieves in government? LOL Plants need carbon. More is better, not less. For the ones that fell for the narrative pounded by the media check on you-tube the real scientists and what they say about it. Be careful with the “scientists” that are paid by the globalists to say what they want though. LOL
There’s Pros and Cons to everything. Since most of the post so far are the negative side of fast delivery lets look at the positive side. When your vehicle is in the shop and is short a part or two and a Drone delivers it in less then 30 minutes, will you change your negative opinion? What about when a plumber or electrician tells you that your utilities are shut-off overnight because they have to go to town and get some parts? How much is it worth to you to have your wife’s heat back on before morning?
Just sayin’, you might want to except the bad with the good 🤔
It makes me chuckle to read some of these comments from I assume mostly a pilot population, that seem to oppose technological progress. I’m sure if the internet existed in the early 1900’s there’d be folks talking about how these new fangled flying machines the Wright Brothers invented will never catch on and they might as well stop wasting our time. The horse and buggy have been around for a long time, and no flying machine will be replacing it. Kids these days should be playing stick and ball, not aspiring to fly, we should leave that to the birds like nature intended. If I’m in the garage fixing my car with hands covered in grease, it would save me so much time if I could verbally order a part on my phone that then arrived in my front yard 15 minutes later. I’ll take it!
Yup, modern convenience will look up, pick and deliver the wrong part in 15 mins, then double charge your card.
I’d take this a little more seriously if not wrapped in the ever present “carbon footprint” fig leaf.
Skeet
The story is about drones, but the comments are about Bourbon. We need to fix the FAA situation before all the pilots are too drunk to fly.