Amazon (AMZN) has had enough of the United States.
Specifically, it's had enough of the country's strict, stifling regulations (no surprise there) on unmanned vehicles – a.k.a. drones.
As you may know, a year ago, the company announced its plan to launch Amazon Prime Air – an ambitious drone-based delivery service that would fly packages up to five pounds in weight to local customers within 30 minutes of placing an order.
Sounds great in theory… until you get to the regulatory part.
Moving at the Speed of Government
Mention the word “government” and there are many more (unpublishable) words that folks would probably use to describe it.
Amazon can probably think of a few.
There's certainly no doubt that elected bureaucrats love to take their sweet time when it comes to writing laws and regulations.
And that's exactly what's triggered Amazon's ire. The company is fed up with waiting for regulators to get off their collective backsides and approve its drone-testing plans for Prime Air. Heck, Amazon has waited since July for the Federal Aviation Administration to approval drone testing in Seattle.
Given the regulatory hurdles that Amazon will have to overcome later, it's at the point where the company is going to head overseas just to test its drone technology.
No doubt the company is miffed at not being one of the six organizations that regulators have approved for commercial drone testing around the United States.
And it's putting more pressure on them to get it done by threatening to take its efforts overseas if U.S. restrictions aren't loosened…
When Drones and Planes Collide… Literally
At a House subcommittee hearing today, the debate continued over how the FAA can weave commercial drones into an already-packed airspace.
And Bloomberg Businessweek reports that it didn't go well for Amazon.
Nicholas Roy, an aeronautics professor at MIT, told the committee that while drone technology is promising, there are “significant technology gaps” separating the promise from reality. He said Amazon's Prime Air drone demonstrations were “prototypes at best” (ouch) and that drones and satellite navigation aren't yet advanced enough to get to people's homes.
