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Re:Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely ove... by TeMPOraL on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @02:33PM (#9970639)
Those are very wrong assumptions. If a serious drone delivery program (or multiple competing ones) starts, airspace will suddenly become congested and you'll have to do heavy air traffic coordination to avoid mid-air collisions. And when you comapre with cars, you need to compare one delivery car with a hundred drones. Suddenly you see that drones are not efficient at all, which is kind of obvious, as it takes a lot of energy to keep stuff in the air with active propulsion.
Re:Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely ove... by xur17 on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @02:55PM (#9970793)
I always pictured trucks driving from distribution centers, and deploying drones that cover an area. That way the drones only have to cover a small distance, reducing the number of drones that have to fly over a given area.
Re:Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely ove... by TeMPOraL on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @03:08PM (#9970870)
Mobile drone hubs seems like a very interesting solution, which could even be more energy-efficient than just trucks or just drones. Somehow I never thought of that, thanks!
Re:Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely ove... by danielweber on Thursday July 30, 2015 @11:13AM (#9975519)
Airspace is big. A central registry where drones announce their flight plans, allowing other drones to selfishly avoid them, would allow for plenty of room for drones to make sure they stay out of each other's way.

I'm skeptical on drones, and I think all this is an effort by Amazon to get in the news. But this doesn't seem like the problem.