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zipline_zoltan840 karma

It’s one of the most common Qs we get but no this hasn’t happened. People aren’t as bad as others expect them to be.

We do a lot of cold weather testing in North Dakota and Tahoe. Our range is not impacted by the cold but we find icing to be a challenge. We've tested down to -20F.

Our long range Platform 1 is ideal for rural. P2 is targeting higher population density. For apartments and similar we plan on delivering to rooftops or common areas. We can tell you exactly when we get there so we can do delivery to a shared space.

zipline_zoltan244 karma

Do we really need drone delivery for cities, though? The fundamental appeal of a drone is that it's small and light, which means it's easy to go out of the way to deliver a single package. But for apartments, you're delivering a lot of packages to destinations that are very close together, so the added speed and versatility of a drone doesn't really make sense compared to the sheer capacity of a cargo van piloted by one guy who can wheel a whole cart of packages into the mailroom of an apartment building.

We don’t need to replace the milk run style deliveries that are done by cargo vans. It’s efficient and people are happy with it. We want to replace the vast majority of on-demand deliveries that are done in single cars.

zipline_zoltan73 karma

We iterate like crazy early in our development process. We do a lot of simulation but we have a huge stash of cardboard and duct-tape built aircraft. Our 3D printers and laser cutters stay busy. As the design starts to gel we shift to higher volume testing which requires a bit more discipline. The pace of iteration and learning is one of our secrets to success.
That being said, we try to keep our designs relatively stable when in production. Our supply chain is complex and global but our current aircraft are assembled in our factory in the US.

zipline_zoltan72 karma

A few of our founders’ family members who are in public health kept nudging the use case of medical logistics - they had heard about how challenges with logistics space were such a huge impediment to quality healthcare in the developing world as well as the rural United States. For context Amazon had announced drone delivery a few years prior. After spending a bunch of time in the field with potential customers, they got the conviction that drone delivery could be really compelling. That is about when I joined and the rest is history :)

For payload and range we worked with our customers to make sure we’re able to handle both the range and payload they need. Our team went to other shippers and collected data by weighing and measuring packages that they were sending out. The range is sufficient to meet our suburban delivery needs but we are continually challenged by our shippers to push it further and further! We do plan for improvements in batteries in the future and have some protection in the design to enable that.

zipline_zoltan65 karma

We want to serve everyone on Earth. We think Europe is a great market for Zipline and we’re excited to serve customers there. We’re designing a global solution. Stay tuned!