https://www.economist.com/business/2018/06/09/how-e-commerce-with-drone-delivery-is-taking-flight-in-china

LATE on a Monday morning the village of Zhangwei is quiet. Chickens scratch and cluck at the side of the road. Workers use wooden spades to spread grain on the highway to dry, using half its width so that traffic can still pass on the other side. Yet at the community centre at the village’s heart, two objects hint at a feat of ultra-modern logistics about to unfold: a circle of green astroturf laid down in the central courtyard, and a billboard on the front of the building bearing the logo of JD.com, China’s second-largest online retailer.

A low whirr breaks the stillness as a spiky dot appears on the horizon. The drone arrives overhead with a roar, hovers for a moment, then lowers itself towards the green circle like a mantis, three sets of propellers churning the air into whorls of straw and dust. Slung beneath it is a red cardboard box branded with JD’s cheery dog mascot. Just a few feet above the ground, the drone drops the box then zips back up into the sky and disappears. The spectacle is over in 20 seconds.

It is a link in a new kind of logistics chain, the world’s first operational drone-delivery programme. While Amazon, an American company, has put out numerous promotional videos on its drone-delivery plans, it will not start commercial operations until at least 2020. Meanwhile, JD.com has spent the past year building a real drone-delivery network covering 100 villages in rural China with 40 drones. Zhangwei currently receives a couple of drops each day, each box containing several packages ordered through JD’s shopping app. Thanks to JD’s drones, which operate autonomously with no human guidance but are monitored remotely, villagers in Zhangwei can expect delivery on the same day that they place an order, like urban shoppers in Beijing, New York or London.

The practicalities of drone delivery only make sense in rural settings. Flying in chaotic urban environments is too difficult for existing drone technology. Densely populated cities generate sufficient orders over a small area that they can be aggregated into daily, or even more frequent, deliveries by van. Batching sparser rural orders in the same way would result in multi-day or week-long delivery times.

Some 600m Chinese live rurally and their shopping habits are encouraging the e-commerce boom, according to official figures. Online retail in rural areas grew by 39% in 2017, up to 1.24trn yuan ($183bn). JD sees upside in providing fast, reliable delivery to the countryside, helping it to take a larger slice of this business.

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More at the link. I think this is pretty exciting :o

At the moment, it doesn't seem to be very economical, but maybe over time economies of scale might make it more feasible.

Y U no like the UPS man?  ???

Y U no like the UPS man?  ???


They're alright. Drones haven't got rid of winter after all ;D I just think the technology is very fascinating.

Also, in this rendition, there are central drone landing pads where the drone drops the product, a delivery man still has to pick them up and take to them to their final location for the last leg of delivery. This would actually require more UPS drivers. It just makes online shopping more accessible for rural shoppers when they get same-day delivery.

Do you think it's possible that within the next decade, instead of drones becoming smaller, they might instead start building drones that are large and powerful enough to where they could carry a person and be used for personal transport?

Because that would be awesome.  8)

Do you think it's possible that within the next decade, instead of drones becoming smaller, they might instead start building drones that are large and powerful enough to where they could carry a person and be used for personal transport?

Because that would be awesome.  8)


What if it drops you mid-air?  :-X

What if it drops you?  :-X


Well, if there are going to be thousands of delivery drones flying overhead hauling packages around then they'd damn sure better be 100% safe and reliable, because if they start crapping our in midair and dropping stuff on people and their property then you can be sure there will be all kinds of lawsuits.

Meaning that drone delivery won't become commonplace until it can assured that they are 100% reliable, and once that point has been reached then they can be enlarged and possibly used as a mode of personal transport.

Well, if there are going to be thousands of delivery drones flying overhead hauling packages around then they'd damn sure better be 100% safe and reliable, because if they start crapping our in midair and dropping stuff on people and their property then you can be sure there will be all kinds of lawsuits.

Meaning that drone delivery won't become commonplace until it can assured that they are 100% reliable, and once that point has been reached then they can be enlarged and possibly used as a mode of personal transport.


I doubt they'll be used to carry heavy things. The laws of physics still apply and trying to air lift heavy things takes a lot of energy and is very inefficient unless you're going far :P

I doubt they'll be used to carry heavy things. The laws of physics still apply and trying to air lift heavy things takes a lot of energy and is very inefficient unless you're going far :P


So my job is safe for a while then?  ;D