This data-file quantifies the energy economics of drone-deliveries, after Amazon and Google both announced breakthrough progress in this space in 2019.
15 commercial drones are evaluated in the ‘drones’ tab, which tabulates their energy consumption as a function of weight, velocity, flight times and costs (chart above).
The equations of flight are then modeled out fully for Amazon’s Prime Air concept in the ‘AmazonCalculation’ tab; for a full comparison against trucks.
We conclude that drone delivery could use c90% less energy, c99% less cost and c90% lower carbon than is typical in current last-mile deliveries.