Axios reports on how "Amazon offered a sneak peek at a small, quiet drone that will be ready in 2024 - and could be making regular deliveries in major cities by the end of the decade … The 80-pound drone could deliver stuff in as little as 30 minutes, while taking CO2-emitting trucks off the street.
"Thousands of items could be eligible. They'll have to fit in one box, and weigh less than 5 pounds."
Axios writes that "the next-gen drone is less intrusive than a bigger model Amazon will use for Prime Air, which begins in two markets — Lockeford, Calif. (San Joaquin County), and College Station, Texas — in coming weeks."
Amazon's stated goal is to be a half-billion packages a year by drone by the end of the decade.
- KC's View:
-
We've heard this before … not that I'm skeptical of the broader concept of drone delivery, but this is one of those areas in which Amazon seems to over-promise and under-deliver.
When then-CEO Jeff Bezos appeared on "60 Minutes" about a decade ago, he implied that the usage of drones on a regular basis to make deliveries could happen by the end of that decade. It certainly hasn't happened - not entirely the fault of Amazon, to be sure - but other companies seem to have been more successful in their tests.
