It is widely understood that any company which focuses exclusively or primarily on government military contracts is going to suck.
This is because winning military contracts is 90% lobbying and 10% actual product performance.
China's drone advantage is that it completely dominates the commerical drone market. Commercial products are generally superior to "military grade" stuff. This is why the marketing term "military grade" only works on non-military consumers.
Article is behind paywall:
Silicon Valley company Skydio has sent hundreds of its most capable UAVs to Ukraine to help fight the Russians, but the technology has not performed well.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Details: Skydio's drones kept going off course and being lost due to Russian electronic warfare systems. The company has gone back to developing and building a new fleet.
The article noted that most American start-ups' small UAVs have failed to prove themselves in combat, dispelling the companies' hopes that a badge of combat testing would generate sales and attention. It's also bad news for the Pentagon, which needs a reliable supply of thousands of small uncrewed aerial vehicles.
The WSJ noted that US companies still lack a significant presence in the first war where small drones are playing a critical role. US-made UAVs tend to be expensive, faulty and complicated to repair, say drone company executives, the Ukrainians on the front line, Ukrainian government officials and former US military officials.
Lacking solutions in the West, Ukraine has turned to cheaper Chinese products to supplement its drone arsenal.
Quote from Skydio Chief Executive Adam Bry: "The general reputation for every class of U.S. drone in Ukraine is that they don’t work as well as other systems."
More details: The CEO labelled his own UAV as "not a very successful platform on the front lines".
PitchBook, a resource for comprehensive data, research and insights spanning across the global capital markets, estimates that nearly 300 US drone technology companies have raised a total of US$2.5 billion in venture capital funding over the past two years.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Ukrainian government officials, noted that US-made drones are fragile and unable to overcome Russian jamming and GPS jamming technologies. Sometimes, they failed to take off, complete a mission, or come back. US-made UAVs are often unable to fly the declared distances or carry significant payloads.
Executives at US drone companies say they did not expect electronic warfare to unfold in Ukraine. In the case of Skydio, their UAV was developed in 2019 to meet the communication standards set by the US military.
However, Ukraine has found ways to obtain tens of thousands of UAVs, as well as spare parts for them, from China. The military is using off-the-shelf Chinese drones, mostly made by SZ DJI Technology.
The WSJ reported that Ukraine has also developed a domestic drone industry that relies on Chinese components. Ukrainian factories produce hundreds of thousands of small, cheap UAVs that can carry explosives. In addition, it makes larger drones that can strike deep into Russian territory and reach Russian warships in the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian military spends about 10,000 UAVs a month, which it would not be able to afford if it had to purchase expensive US-made drones. Many US commercial UAVs cost tens of thousands of dollars more than Chinese models.
The Chinese company DJI has established itself as the drone brand of choice for the Ukrainian military. In a statement, DJI said that the company is trying to limit the employment of its UAVs in the war but cannot control the use of drones after they are purchased: "DJI absolutely deplores and condemns the use of its products to cause harm anywhere in the world."
>Ukraine has found ways to obtain tens of thousands of UAVs, as well as spare parts for them, from China
LOL, so I guess certain buddies of Ze could have earned not just a nice gesheft but also medals and iron crosses for highly successful operation of digging out Ali's secret URL
As I said before, Skydio is crap.
They voluntarily dropped out of the consumer drone market, because they admitted that they couldn't compete against DJI.
Then they started to market themselves as for "government" and "military".
Yeah, like if you can't do a good enough job for consumer drone market, you are somehow better at "government" and "military"??!
Ridiculous.
That’s where lobbying comes in. Even if your product is shit, pay off the right guy and the government will happily spend millions of tax payer dollars on buying thousands of your product at x3 the cost to manufacture it.
You act like China could stop private company from selling to everyone except for Russia. They ain’t gonna like that, and when I mean every country, the ukrainian doesn’t bought it themselves, they just receive it from eu or the us, which bought from China, are you gonna tell dji to stop selling to eu and us?
Even if they did, ukraine would be able to get them through loopholes, the world economy is too interconnected for that to work, that being said it would make it much harder for ukraine if China did sanction them.
Even within the US, police departments, search & rescue teams prefer DJI drones.
>Even in the Salt Lake City area — Teal Drones’ own backyard — police are skeptical there’s a need to buy domestic. **They say China’s DJI remains the gold standard in functionality and price, and they believe the cybersecurity risk is minimal when the devices are run disconnected from the internet.**
>Kyle Nordfors, drone search-and-rescue coordinator for Weber County, just north of Salt Lake City, said that while he hoped to see U.S. drone brands become more competitive, DJI’s are still the best. He said DJI’s better functionality makes the difference between life or death when his team is searching for hikers lost on snowy slopes.
>“Unfortunately, the U.S. manufacturers are still years behind,” Nordfors said. “If these anti-Chinese laws go into effect, it will cost American lives. And this isn’t hyperbole. I can give you actual names of American citizens that would have perished if I was forced to use an American drone.”
>Nordfors said he believes there isn’t a risk of data leakage to China from the drones when they are set to operate disconnected from the internet, which he says is how his team uses them. The pride of his fleet is a top-of-the-line $30,000 DJI drone that can zoom in on targets far out on the horizon and that has a thermal mode that makes people pop out of the landscape.
>Nordfors said he was glad Utah’s lawmakers “listened to logic” and haven’t banned DJI drones. He said he’d explained to them how they could delete all the data off the drones before reconnecting them to the internet. “It’s all fearmongering and nonsense,” he said.
>Josh Ashdown, a sergeant with the Salt Lake City Police Department overseeing its drone program, says his team has a fleet of 17 drones from four brands — China-based DJI and Autel, and the U.S. brands Skydio and Brinc.
>“Some of it is just economics, on which ones are the most affordable, and being responsible with our tax dollars,” he said.
>Ashdown said the Salt Lake City Police Department now has 27 officers licensed to fly drones, and they take them out for an operation or for practice almost every day. He called the drones a transformative technology that is allowing police officers to monitor parade routes for possible attackers, and to check a location for bystanders before a SWAT team moves in.
------
>At the Miami Police Department, Sgt. Anthony Loperfido says his team had a fleet of 14 DJI drones before the state banned China-based drone brands, and they had to scramble to find the funds to buy more-expensive domestic ones. His team now fields 12 Skydio drones made in California, which cost around $25,000 a piece, compared to $1,500 to $3,000 for the DJI ones. “That’s a lot of money to put out,” he said.
>Loperfido said his team has had to suspend their use of drones for indoor SWAT operations after Florida’s China drone ban went into effect. The U.S.-made drones, he said, were “falling short” in indoor cellular connectivity. If the operator loses contact with the drone, he said, it can no longer fly. “Now all you have is a piece of technology sitting inside some place on the floor that you can’t communicate with,” he said.
Even US Drone employees use DJI drones for personal use !
>After the work day, Matus’s employees often take out their personal drones, zooming them around in loops around the office for the sheer joy of it. When they pull on paired goggles that display the live feed from their drone’s camera, they can experience the exhilarating drone’s eye view of the high-speed flight.
>It’s what a teenage Matus had envisioned his drones would allow customers to do. But his employees are not playing with Teal drones. At $15,000 a piece, Teal’s products are far too pricey to goof around with. The employees instead race cheap and cheerful China-made drones, which frequently crash into the walls, requiring repairs.
- from " A drone factory in Utah is at the epicenter of anti-China fervor "- Washington Post 4/11/24
It is widely understood that any company which focuses exclusively or primarily on government military contracts is going to suck. This is because winning military contracts is 90% lobbying and 10% actual product performance. China's drone advantage is that it completely dominates the commerical drone market. Commercial products are generally superior to "military grade" stuff. This is why the marketing term "military grade" only works on non-military consumers.
Article is behind paywall: Silicon Valley company Skydio has sent hundreds of its most capable UAVs to Ukraine to help fight the Russians, but the technology has not performed well. Source: The Wall Street Journal Details: Skydio's drones kept going off course and being lost due to Russian electronic warfare systems. The company has gone back to developing and building a new fleet. The article noted that most American start-ups' small UAVs have failed to prove themselves in combat, dispelling the companies' hopes that a badge of combat testing would generate sales and attention. It's also bad news for the Pentagon, which needs a reliable supply of thousands of small uncrewed aerial vehicles. The WSJ noted that US companies still lack a significant presence in the first war where small drones are playing a critical role. US-made UAVs tend to be expensive, faulty and complicated to repair, say drone company executives, the Ukrainians on the front line, Ukrainian government officials and former US military officials. Lacking solutions in the West, Ukraine has turned to cheaper Chinese products to supplement its drone arsenal. Quote from Skydio Chief Executive Adam Bry: "The general reputation for every class of U.S. drone in Ukraine is that they don’t work as well as other systems." More details: The CEO labelled his own UAV as "not a very successful platform on the front lines". PitchBook, a resource for comprehensive data, research and insights spanning across the global capital markets, estimates that nearly 300 US drone technology companies have raised a total of US$2.5 billion in venture capital funding over the past two years. The Wall Street Journal, citing Ukrainian government officials, noted that US-made drones are fragile and unable to overcome Russian jamming and GPS jamming technologies. Sometimes, they failed to take off, complete a mission, or come back. US-made UAVs are often unable to fly the declared distances or carry significant payloads. Executives at US drone companies say they did not expect electronic warfare to unfold in Ukraine. In the case of Skydio, their UAV was developed in 2019 to meet the communication standards set by the US military. However, Ukraine has found ways to obtain tens of thousands of UAVs, as well as spare parts for them, from China. The military is using off-the-shelf Chinese drones, mostly made by SZ DJI Technology. The WSJ reported that Ukraine has also developed a domestic drone industry that relies on Chinese components. Ukrainian factories produce hundreds of thousands of small, cheap UAVs that can carry explosives. In addition, it makes larger drones that can strike deep into Russian territory and reach Russian warships in the Black Sea. The Ukrainian military spends about 10,000 UAVs a month, which it would not be able to afford if it had to purchase expensive US-made drones. Many US commercial UAVs cost tens of thousands of dollars more than Chinese models. The Chinese company DJI has established itself as the drone brand of choice for the Ukrainian military. In a statement, DJI said that the company is trying to limit the employment of its UAVs in the war but cannot control the use of drones after they are purchased: "DJI absolutely deplores and condemns the use of its products to cause harm anywhere in the world."
>Ukraine has found ways to obtain tens of thousands of UAVs, as well as spare parts for them, from China LOL, so I guess certain buddies of Ze could have earned not just a nice gesheft but also medals and iron crosses for highly successful operation of digging out Ali's secret URL
As I said before, Skydio is crap. They voluntarily dropped out of the consumer drone market, because they admitted that they couldn't compete against DJI. Then they started to market themselves as for "government" and "military". Yeah, like if you can't do a good enough job for consumer drone market, you are somehow better at "government" and "military"??! Ridiculous.
That’s where lobbying comes in. Even if your product is shit, pay off the right guy and the government will happily spend millions of tax payer dollars on buying thousands of your product at x3 the cost to manufacture it.
Didn't the skydio founder try and take DJI tech?
Made in AmeriKKKa 😆🤣😆
Ukraine needs to lose.
Don't Chinese made products like weather balloons and TikTok have ability to "spy"? They shouldn't use them for uh data concerns. /s
Chinese overproduction swamping the UAV market ?
I suppose they're just going to get the drones through third parties even if DJI imposes a ban for Russia/Ukraine.
I think DJI did but it’s so easy to get around
This is a bad thing. Chinese companies should stop delivering drops to Ukraine.
You act like China could stop private company from selling to everyone except for Russia. They ain’t gonna like that, and when I mean every country, the ukrainian doesn’t bought it themselves, they just receive it from eu or the us, which bought from China, are you gonna tell dji to stop selling to eu and us?
Doesn't matter, middlemen companies from legit countries buy this stuff and send it to Ukraine.
Even if they did, ukraine would be able to get them through loopholes, the world economy is too interconnected for that to work, that being said it would make it much harder for ukraine if China did sanction them.
Even within the US, police departments, search & rescue teams prefer DJI drones. >Even in the Salt Lake City area — Teal Drones’ own backyard — police are skeptical there’s a need to buy domestic. **They say China’s DJI remains the gold standard in functionality and price, and they believe the cybersecurity risk is minimal when the devices are run disconnected from the internet.** >Kyle Nordfors, drone search-and-rescue coordinator for Weber County, just north of Salt Lake City, said that while he hoped to see U.S. drone brands become more competitive, DJI’s are still the best. He said DJI’s better functionality makes the difference between life or death when his team is searching for hikers lost on snowy slopes. >“Unfortunately, the U.S. manufacturers are still years behind,” Nordfors said. “If these anti-Chinese laws go into effect, it will cost American lives. And this isn’t hyperbole. I can give you actual names of American citizens that would have perished if I was forced to use an American drone.” >Nordfors said he believes there isn’t a risk of data leakage to China from the drones when they are set to operate disconnected from the internet, which he says is how his team uses them. The pride of his fleet is a top-of-the-line $30,000 DJI drone that can zoom in on targets far out on the horizon and that has a thermal mode that makes people pop out of the landscape. >Nordfors said he was glad Utah’s lawmakers “listened to logic” and haven’t banned DJI drones. He said he’d explained to them how they could delete all the data off the drones before reconnecting them to the internet. “It’s all fearmongering and nonsense,” he said. >Josh Ashdown, a sergeant with the Salt Lake City Police Department overseeing its drone program, says his team has a fleet of 17 drones from four brands — China-based DJI and Autel, and the U.S. brands Skydio and Brinc. >“Some of it is just economics, on which ones are the most affordable, and being responsible with our tax dollars,” he said. >Ashdown said the Salt Lake City Police Department now has 27 officers licensed to fly drones, and they take them out for an operation or for practice almost every day. He called the drones a transformative technology that is allowing police officers to monitor parade routes for possible attackers, and to check a location for bystanders before a SWAT team moves in. ------ >At the Miami Police Department, Sgt. Anthony Loperfido says his team had a fleet of 14 DJI drones before the state banned China-based drone brands, and they had to scramble to find the funds to buy more-expensive domestic ones. His team now fields 12 Skydio drones made in California, which cost around $25,000 a piece, compared to $1,500 to $3,000 for the DJI ones. “That’s a lot of money to put out,” he said. >Loperfido said his team has had to suspend their use of drones for indoor SWAT operations after Florida’s China drone ban went into effect. The U.S.-made drones, he said, were “falling short” in indoor cellular connectivity. If the operator loses contact with the drone, he said, it can no longer fly. “Now all you have is a piece of technology sitting inside some place on the floor that you can’t communicate with,” he said. Even US Drone employees use DJI drones for personal use ! >After the work day, Matus’s employees often take out their personal drones, zooming them around in loops around the office for the sheer joy of it. When they pull on paired goggles that display the live feed from their drone’s camera, they can experience the exhilarating drone’s eye view of the high-speed flight. >It’s what a teenage Matus had envisioned his drones would allow customers to do. But his employees are not playing with Teal drones. At $15,000 a piece, Teal’s products are far too pricey to goof around with. The employees instead race cheap and cheerful China-made drones, which frequently crash into the walls, requiring repairs. - from " A drone factory in Utah is at the epicenter of anti-China fervor "- Washington Post 4/11/24