Liz Young of The Wall Street Journal tells her readers that airborne delivery tech is improving, but the economics of getting packages to homes must be solved for a wider rollout.
Drone operators have figured out how to defy gravity to deliver items from diapers to prescription medicines by air. Making a profit is proving more challenging.
Companies from Walmart and Amazon to delivery app DoorDash have started aerial deliveries in parts of the U.S., as they look to speed up fulfillment while reducing carbon emissions.
But those deliveries cost significantly more than using a car, bike or van to deliver goods, partly because of federal regulations requiring each drone to remain within sight of a human employee, logistics experts say. […]
Chief Executive Tom Walker said each delivery in 2020 cost DroneUp hundreds of dollars. That came down to about $38 a delivery by the end of last year, and Walker said he is aiming to bring the cost below $3 by early 2025.
“Seventy-four percent of our cost is labor, loading the drone, unloading the drone, rotating batteries, and so forth,” Walker said. “If you drop 74% of your labor, right out of the gate, that’s a pretty significant driver.”
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