Amazon might keep all drone delivery efforts in house (AMZN)
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Amazon was recently awarded a new patent for "intermodal vehicles," which are essentially drone-launching trailers that can be moved around by trucks, vans, according to Business Insider.
The patent is noteworthy because until now, it was unclear whether or not Amazon would rely on a third party for a network of vehicles to support its drone delivery efforts — many automakers have built vans designed to launch drones out of the roof, for example. But this suggests Amazon wants to keep these efforts in-house.
Keeping all its drone delivery efforts in-house could be pricier than relying on third parties, but could help Amazon launch its Prime Air program faster. Amazon's rapidly rising e-commerce volume has forced it to explore alternative delivery methods like drone deliveries. But drone deliveries are difficult — most drones either can't fly that far or are limited by regulations from doing so — which means a network of vehicles might be needed to ferry them around and serve as a launching pad. Knowing this, many automakers are starting to explore plans to build these vehicles.
But this patent suggests Amazon wants to build this in-house, which could be expensive — the company doesn't have an extensive background in building anything similar, so it will likely need to hire more employees if it wants to go down this path. However, since most automakers don't have plans to build anything like this anytime soon, building them itself might position Amazon to launch its Prime Air drone delivery service sooner than if it had needed to wait on a third party.
Jonathan Camhi, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on drone delivery that:
- Provides an overview of how drones can transform parcel delivery by automating logistics, particularly for last-mile deliveries.
- Examines the efforts of several companies across industries that are experimenting with drone delivery.
- Highlights the major obstacles that remain in making drone delivery mainstream.
- Provides a timeline for the adoption and scaling of drone delivery services in the US.
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