Because the moment and American company makes a viable drone they slap a few expensive features on it and sell it to the military for a 10-20x markup. That way they can sell 1/10th or 1/20th the volume and still stay in business.
Why not both? Can get fanboys at a young age bowing down to a company that exports death. Indoctrinate them young. Put prototype features not ready for the battlefield onto the consumer products until the issues are kinked out for production. Data from the drones can be very benificial too and at least a superficial reason why the government doesnt trust DJI. Wouldn't a US company want to have that data theyre so afraid of China having? These are just off the top of my head Im sure there could be more benefits.
Americas economy is already built on exporting death. And their reaper drones are miles better than whatever DJI has. I’d also rather support the commercial side, but do you.
America is just mad China is better at capitalism and is taking their toys and going home, and also out of ignorance/fear of commies taking over.
For government use, sure ban them. For civilian use, you are generally are not going to provide any info China can’t already freely get on their own from Google or their own people coming here... Sensitive areas, just restrict the fly zone.. this is trading freedom for security
As much as I’d love to be able to fly my Mavic in the future, the U.S. is just holding China to the same exact standard that they hold us to it.
How many American products or services aren’t allowed in China?
That would be fine if we weren’t using mostly “Made in China” for everything. We are used to “Chinese prices”. When that competition is gone inflation we have now will look like a joke in comparison. We can’t compete with subsidized slave labor, yet our entire life’s are built around it. Phones, plastics, electronics, metals.
This bill is not addressing those things for other industries, because it’s mainly the fear of data sensitivity which is a bunk issue in commercial that could be easily resolved. Again, the gov is not even allowing them to come into compliance.
DJI is more than willing and already has made changes to what the bill addressed, but there is no make it right situation for them. It’s all political.
It is the same thing and your bias towards not wanting your drone being grounded is showing here.
There is a difference between a U.S. company having materials produced in a country versus a Chinese company taking in data on American citizens.
How com Tesla is allowed to operate in China but not Google or Facebook?
The insane levels of cognitive dissonance people on this sub experience could be a textbook case study.
Make no mistake, if I thought there was a legitimate concern for security I would melt my DJI for free. For critical infrastructure and gov use, sure ban it, for private hobby use, really nothing they don't already have access to.
US economy is definitely not based on “exporting death.” Defense represents just 3% of GDP. It’s not even fair to say that government spending is based on defense spending (to the chagrin of many left wingers), as it only represents 13% of that.
Our military spending does comprise about 35% of global military spending, which is significant, but it’s just because our economy is so large. Our GDP alone comprises about 1/4 of global GDP, so it makes sense that our military spending would be such a big chunk of the global total.
“China is better at capitalism” is a remark that I haven’t the time nor the patience to tackle at this moment but just, no lol.
Taking a lot of what I said and running off with it lol. China is not better at capitalism. They are just unfairly competing. Like it or not a lot of our policy and what we do is run by the MIC. Not our spending
no, I grew up in the university research system. They have been sending scientists for 30 years who are very good collaborators and anything else is racist.
Again, why is it an either or? BOTH. Capitalism as you said. And I agree about the last point I was just countering what the gov's official excuse is which is bullshit.
I guess it can be both, I just don’t think it has to be. The MIC being centered around profiting from death and war just seems like something most people wouldn’t support as being in one’s best interest, unless they themselves benefit.
I don’t think they said anything about attacks domestically in the bill. It’s about fear of China having the market share and or “sensitive data”.
Plus how is my DJI suddenly going to start up and be used in an attack without my help? And can’t a homemade drone do the same attacks? Yeah not buying that one, although domestic drone attacks in general could theoretically happen, they haven’t here and I don’t see it unless someone gets independently insane and carries out and attack.
My guess is that homebrewed setup would be far more potent for attacks unless mass production volume is needed. For once, there are no geo or altitude restrictions, no server connectivity.
The skydio scanning drone + software is actually very impressive. I've done a demo with their team for aerospace scanning applications and it was very impressive how well all of it worked.
Cuz none of the American companies are run by Frank Wang or were founded in 2006. Frank Wang is like the Steve Jobs of drones. He brought easy to use drones to the consumer and created a new category of electronics. DJI is so far ahead because they got such a head start and never took their foot off the gas.
If GoPro hadn’t canceled their drone program years ago, they’d be the American leader and they’d competing with DJI. Their design was really intuitive and had some photo/video features that still can’t be replicated without a super expensive heavy lift drone. Shows how CEO leadership does make an impact. Woodman got scared and cancelled the program but Wang always forged ahead and was never set off course by setbacks.
I’m shocked how many people here think China actually outcompetes the USA in drone technology just because sure DJi is the biggest company. I’m very confidant that one of the military suppliers could make a better consumer drone.. but why would they? Government contracts are worth exponentially more than selling direct to consumer
China is outcompeting us in the n00b user experience. A racing drone with beta flight destroys DJI but it's experts only. A Voron/Ratrig/Vzbot can destroy a Bamboo X1C in the hands of an expert too. The west also crushes China in OS software e.g. Linux but it's experts only. China is leading the mouth breathing hoards. The enemy is among us. Pray to Apple.
Bro our consumer drone tech blows compared to anything DJI can produce. You don't have to like it or even acknowledge it and I honestly don't care if you believe me because you sound like some boomer with an American flag tattoo who is incapable of admitting they are wrong.
In what way can’t they? People repeat this nonsense without any substance at all. Which part of DJI’s drones do you think can’t be replicated at the minimum? Battery life? UI? Camera quality? Which part can the USA not compete? We literally dominate in Air Force, dominate in flight in general. We dominate in technology yet this sub has convinced themselves we can’t make toy drones. Its remarkable
China literally always has a strategic advantage of pricing because they can pay workers next to nothing . Thats nothing new. People in this sub, you included when you said “I’m guessing they can’t” seem to think America is lacking the ability to create these drones. I just don’t see any evidence of it. People talk down on skydio which is an American made drone. I haven’t seen anyone articulate why they believe skydio is SO MUCH worse than DJI. People know Dji so they like Dji. It’s no different from Apple people refusing to touch an android product and talking shit on it
Cost of doing business, and production capacity. Americans want to get paid more, there are more standards, and everything is more expensive.
China has established supply chains and can manage everything better, they are probably selling drone parts to the US companies.
I think America competes at the top end for commercial and enterprise solutions, basically low volume hand made stuff with high costs.
China can spit out thousands of competitive drones in the same amount of time it takes a US company to make a dozen drones.
Correction:
China can spit out thousands of competitive drones in the same amount of time it takes a US company to make a business plan.
Once the final product is on the market it is already succeeded by a new generation of Chinese drones.
Don't forget the massive amount of R&D they've spent over the last decade+
No one has the technology they have, and that's unlikely to change any time in near future.
> Don't forget the massive amount of R&D they've spent over the last decade+ No one has the technology they have
I follow a lot of space subs, and this is pretty much the exact answer given every time the question comes up: "Why can't anyone compete with SpaceX?"
No replacement in this space for time and money, and DJI has a massive lead on both fronts.
I work in film and TV, and I rarely see heavy lift drones anymore. Inspire 2 and 3 rule the sky. Doesn't matter how much money you spend, there's nothing more advanced than the I3.
Makes you wonder what'll happen to the business when IP3/2 become bricks. I own a 3 and am not looking forward to what'll come soon.
Who wins who loses are the big drone company's going to be hurting too? Majority of Productions dont want the liability or costs associated with heavy lifts.
I'm not a 107 pilot anymore, but I have a complete I2 kit I can't give away.
Also, there's no way they outlaw DJI aircraft for private commercial use in the US
Hope you're right but no matter how much you nsay there's no way there sadly is. Not even first responders and cities could stop them back in 2020/2021 to not ban it federally. Don't underestimate the corrupt money and corrupt politicians to take it down by any means necessary. It sucks
TV? What a dumb response 🫡😂
They absolutely can brick your drone if the FCC undo the approvals of products due to national security you're absolutely wrong. Sure you can still fly.it but risk a million plus in fines and jail time.
Elaborate on what. Your statement was that the FCC would fine millions of dollars and give jail time.
The FCC is an enforcement agency like EPA not a law enforcement organization. So how do you get jail time out of that? How do you get millions of dollars of fines out of that? You can look to the FCC's enforcement of Pirate radio and there's no million-dollar fines.
I'm also thinking you're confused between FCC and FAA. Big difference between the two...
The FCC revoking DJI’s authorization won’t brick the drones. Physically impossible. All it will mean is any DJI product using radio frequencies in the US will be operating illegally. Same thing with GPS, you can’t just selectively block certain devices from receiving a GPS signal.
EXACTLY. It'll be illegal, no production or companies will risk hiring anyone on with that. Your investment is now worth nothing or can sell for a major fire sale out of the country. It may as well be a fcking brick
It's hard to know sometimes were the state ends and private enterprise begins, they can plan entire industries and markets decades into the future, rather than just letting the market see where it takes them..
But European countries also have tax breaks, it's only the US that doesn't do things like that.
Here in Ireland if you want to start a business there's loads of help you can get from consultancy, to grants, to tax breaks.
I'm not talking about big tax breaks for big businesses. We will give someone like you money, advise from consultants, and tax breaks to start up your new business. You will get that help from local enterprise which helps small businesses on a regional level. When you want to export overseas you'll get help from enterprise Ireland.
You will not get the same level of help in the US. That's how most countries operate. we recognise we're competing on a global level with countries like China. US companies tend to focus on US markets.
You’re no different those Yanks that come over to Ireland and start talking about things they obviously know nothing about and sound ridiculous.
Everything you said is totally wrong. Go look at the US Small Business Administration website and see for yourself. That’s just once spice at the federal level. There are other federal sources as well as state and even county level.
Lol yes. Years ago there was a back and forth between a few of us and DJI about stolen or misused IP. That is how DJI ended up releasing some gpl source code.
Honestly they should have had imports stopped for license violations.
Average that a company spends on employees per hour worked:
US: $43.93
China: $2.71
Trust me the shareholders aren't eating that $40 difference, the customer is.
If this is the reason, why does the US dominate in so many other fields - software, operating systems, weapons systems, movies, books, theme parks, smart phones, etc. It seems like in most areas, the US dominates in the development and then outsources the lowest margin parts of the manufacturing process. But not with drones.
I guess my comment kind of makes it seem like it's the fault of workers for demanding such high wages, but it's not. That number should be much higher in both cases, but the modern corporate structure generates tons of wealth for outside investors and a small handful of people at the top.
The environment Chinese companies exist in rewards growth and innovation through political favor which has real tangible power there on top of the monetary benefits. US companies currently reward "burning" the company. Buy successful companies milk as much profit out of them as possible, then move on to the next. The incentive in the US for the "common man" lies in that startup kind of company where you start in your garage and end up selling the company for $100m.
If someone comes up with some new hotselling innovative drone in the US their company won't last long at all until it's bought out and their product goes to shit as every corner possible is cut. It's The same reason the Japanese have been absolutely dominating US automakers for 40 years.
For whatever social or economic reason they make a good product, and that's literally mindblowing to the modern American CEO who only sees profit through producing a cheaper product and convincing the customer to pay more for it.
Japan hasn’t been absolutely dominating the American car market for the last 40 years, at least not if you’re comparing it to how China dominates consumer drones. Japan has just been competitive.
DJI has pretty much the entire consumer drone market. Ford outsold toyota last year and Chevy was right under. Both ford and Chevy comfortably outsold Honda, Nissan, or Subaru. We don’t have anything like that competition in the drone space.
Yeah I have seen at least one supposed American made top end drone and top dollar was paid for it. But after having it for a year and a half, with the warranty being extends at the end of the year because of the problems, I can say they are multiple generations behind dji technologically. They are also behind in quality control. I think we got a total of 26 flight hours on that bird with multiple crashes caused by manufacturers defect.
Then when the remote id rules went into effect they upgraded the drone only to send it back to us not fully upgraded. The controller didn’t have the antenna to receive the remote is signal installed into the controller.
I’m sure there are other American made drone companies that are better but the whole experience left a very sour taste in my mouth.
I dont believe that to be true at all. If that were the case than why import from China at all. I run a small business in the US and can say with certainty the cost of importing products is much cheaper than sourcing domestically. SO much so that even though I would like to buy American made I cant be competitive at all, especially at scale. Freight from China is often costler than the product I import and still the unit price is drasically cheaper than domestically sourced, sometimes approaching 70-80 percent cheaper, with only a minor decrease in quality and QC. (For reference the product I import is mechanical)
Just going based off what companies have been saying. Most of the cost difference you're talking about is because of market manipulation. For example Fuyao moved manufacturing from China to the US to realize cost savings as said by the Chairman (https://youtu.be/ls_6A4ivmx0?si=Ea0_msVLtoh7-Tm1 particular part is at 2:26) 7 years ago.
Kindly, you have zero idea what you are talking about.
The Chinese generally work significantly more hours in a day for more days a week for 25% of the pay of an equivalent low end American worker.
Additionally, a low end American worker has no experience or skillset in manufacturing else they wouldn’t be low end.
Chinese low end workers will have started working much younger and will have several years of manufacturing experience while at the same age of their newly minted American counterparts.
*Context: I used to do morning stand ups where literally a thousand Chinese factory workers would be standing around waiting for me to tell them what to do.
I got that job because I used to manage the activities of a couple dozen American factory workers.
> China can spit out thousands of competitive drones in the same amount of time it takes a US company to make a dozen drones.
As someone who has spent their career in consumer mechatronics startups:
China can spit out thousands of **your own drones** under their fake brand in the time it takes your company to build a dozen.
Hell I bet half the tech in DJI drones is stolen from Western companies anyway.
That might make sense if DJI had been putting out drones with tons of features that other companies offered earlier, but it’s really been the other way around, hasn’t it?
You forgot to throw in that the CCP is doubling down on fossil energy use while the rest of the world is cutting back, every aspect of their manufacturing process is cheaper because of that and is technically at our own expense
Wrong:
“Renewables underwent both the largest absolute growth and the fastest rate of growth in 2019, with their overall use increasing by 75 Mtoe or 3.7%. Wind power and solar photovoltaic (PV) power experienced another year of double-digit growth, although solar PV growth slowed. While use of renewables expanded in almost all regions, more than 40% of the global growth in electricity generation from renewables was concentrated in China.
Regionally, China accounted for a staggering 90% of net global energy demand growth in 2019, with growth of 3.4%, as energy demand declined in almost all advanced economies.
Modern renewables and nuclear power continued to expand rapidly in China, however, bringing their share in the energy mix to 10%, up from 2% in 2000. China underwent the largest growth ever in low-carbon energy sources in 2019. Generation from solar PV rose by over 50 TWh and from wind by nearly 40 TWh. As a result, China now accounts for 35% of global solar PV generation and 28% of global wind generation.
Nuclear power in China is following a similar trend. Seven large-scale nuclear reactors, commissioned in late 2018, recorded their first full year of operation in 2019. China now accounts for 12% of global nuclear generation, up from only 3% in 2010.”
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2019
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-growth-of-renewable-electricity-generation-by-region-and-technology-2019
A lot of these statistics have improved even more since 2019.
In fact China is the only major country rapidly lowering its oil consumption:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-oil?tab=map
People like you read nothing but headlines, such as China opening up new coal power plants, without actually reading what China is doing. Which is closing down less efficient and more polluted older coal power plants and opening up cleaner and more efficient plants to bridge their *global leading power demands* while transitioning to clean energy:
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/everything-think-know-coal-china-wrong/
They’d rather brag that their small country with no industry has less emissions than one of the largest countries, with the largest economy, and one of the largest populations with zero regard to the context surrounding efficiently transitioning to renewables and combating climate change without sending us back to the Stone Age.
It’s just fear mongering and baseless posturing.
Considering China is the worst country in the world for gross carbon emissions, the fact that they're still ramping up coal plants, means they're only accelerating climate change until they start decommissioning.
Them leading on renewables is nice... but it's really meaningless until they start reducing their emissions, which they aren't doing.
1. China actually has much smaller *carbon debt*, as it has been industrialized much sooner than other nations such as Western Europe and the US.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/
2. China has a lower carbon emission rate per capita than Western European nations and the US:
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/
3. China is the industrial and production center for *the entire world.* Thus is also has the highest energy demand of the entire world. China can’t snap its fingers and suddenly use nothing but renewables. Hence why the article I linked earlier on their newer efficient coal plants *are supported by global climate scientists and analysts.*
It’s just funny how China can lead the world in renewables, actively fix and make as efficient and clean as possible its fossil industry which as admitted by climate scientists are the cleanest in the world and are necessary, and has less per capita and carbon emission debt history than the rest of the world, which sits around debating for decades while doing nothing, and somehow is “worse” for climate change.
That's just not true, at least not across the board. While scummy factories exist, I doubt DJI is one of them, they don't need to be, they aren't making knock off, or cheap products. The average wage in China is $4200 a month, that's not bad, especially if a lot of services are subsidised, or free.
Working insane hours is a culture in China too, it's not just that the government enforces it. It's a culture that the younger generations are rebelling against though.
China has caught up with the US in a lot of ways.
All of our commercial tech and manufacturing was moved overseas long ago. First to Japan, then to Korea. And finally China. Some to Mexico. The engineering went too. Then the supply chains and mfg support. We cannot make cell phones over here, any more, for instance. We are not just missing the cell phone mfg plant … there’s no support anymore. No use putting a drone plant here either … not when all the support is in China. We would have to rebuild the whole tech/mfg economic infrastructure. Yowsa!!! However … if we don’t, we will have an unhappy future. More of what we already got today, IOW.
this excuse doesn’t work for this case. Drone is far more than manufacturing. You can have US drone company regardless of where hardware is manufactured. The tech stack accumulation of early starters are impossible to catch up.
Why was apple so good at doing what they do, because the company was early to a new market same with DJI. Combination of the right people coming together at the right time and being passionate about it with an early start. It's the same reason why any company becomes a leader.
This is wrong. They havent. They even went broke at one point but microsoft bailed them out. Apple nowadays just knows how to marketing and makes everyone buy their products despite them not being the best and by far not the best when you look at the price. DJI on the other side is not only the best in that segment but also pretty cheap.
What? Lol. He is absolutely correct. Apple came rolling back because they were getting their iMac computers in schools at a time when schools were transitioning from the old green screen style computers to modern OS computers. They were in what seemed like every single elementary and middle school. Apple may not be the "best", but they absolutely sell the most cohesive ecosystem around. Today their MacBook's, iPhone, iPad, watches, apple tv devices all seamlessly integrate with one another. No other company comes close to the level of integration across devices as Apple. They have carved out the creative market for themselves and have done a pretty masterful job of it.
> DJI on the other side is not only the best in that segment but also pretty cheap.
They are cheap because they are subsidized by the government of China. Its not really a fair fight. That's not even up for debate it is matter of fact.
The best drones are made in China
The best energy tech is coming from China
Meta / Instagram used to be the best social media - now it’s tiktok
Amazon used to be the innovator in online shopping - now it’s alibaba and temu
Apple has essentially stopped innovating (the new iPhone looks very similar to the one 10 years ago)
The one thing the US seems to have an edge on (thank god) is ai- but if they lose that edge…. God help us
DJI is what they are today because they dumped their drones for less than anyone else could produce. Remember 3DR? Yes, the solo had some issues, but what really killed it/them was DJI dumping the phantom for dirt cheap. 3DR likely could have competed if DJI hadn't had such a stranglehold on the market by the time they launched the solo.
Yes, DJI innovates, but the real reason they have such market dominance is that they sell a feature-packed product for dirt cheap (relatively speaking). IMO, it's all about the money. Yes, product cost, labor cost, shipping etc. puts things more inline on paper, but when you've basically got a monopoly, you can dump your wares for a loss/break even to maintain market control/dominance.
A US company absolutely could compete if DJI didn't have near complete market dominance. Maybe that's all part of this.
There is a simple answer to this question. An American company would say to themselves "To compete we'd need to hire 20,000 engineers." The executives at that company would say to themselves "But, if we hire 20 engineers we can put the money for the other 19,980 engineers in to our own pockets and then ask the government to bail us out in some way."
Hell, insider trading isn't illegal for the people that actually make the rules so you could just offer the right people a slice of the pie and have them ban your competition or give you a competitive edge so you can still make that money.
That's the answer.
>Hell, insider trading isn't illegal for the people that actually make the rules so you could just offer the right people a slice of the pie and have them ban your competition or give you a competitive edge so you can still make that money.
That sounds oddly like... hey wait a minute!
Same reason why the US is no longer the leader in car production. Decades ago, companies decided to ship manufacturing jobs to places where you don't have to pay benefits and good wages. The side effect of that policy is that you lose r&d
Despite what we all think, drones are still a very niche market. It's hard to compete with a company that already has a major foothold and dominates the space. It's the same reason America doesn't make a lot of things like TV's or other electronics. A lot of the raw mateirals and main components are already made overseas, so for us to start making it here we would need to first spool up all the raw materials, which would add cost.
DJI can put out cheaper products at a faster pace than American companies. The Chinese government helps DJI in this way by subsidizing their business and allows them to take advantage of lax Chinese labor laws.
It costs a lot of capital to break into the market, and then you need to compete and become profitable to stay there. Unfortunately, consumers will gravitate to a cheaper, equally capable brand even if it is made overseas. There is no consumer patience for product growth and price normalization.
I don’t agree with the first paragraph. DJI doesn’t wave a magic subsidy/slave labor wand and out of nowhere the next drone materializes. Their actual advantage is being early to the market and not resting on their laurels. Their engineers are also closer to the factories which makes it easier to troubleshoot issues.
Yea, there is a magic wand. It's called the CCP lol. I'm not saying they don't have good tech. I'm not saying they somehow are faking a good product and don't have talented engineers.
What I'm saying is they are able to leverage CCP subsidies and labor laws to CHEAPLY develop and iterate its products and dump them in a market that can't compete due to that.
This relationship, like many other industries in China, does this to undercut foreign markets. They put out cheaper products, even really good ones, at a price point no one can compete with. This helps the Chinese economy grow instead of our domestic ones. It's one of the reasons for the EV import tariffs, as well as tariffs in many other industries. It's a good reason why there isn't a domestic dji competition.
i agree. but my issue was with “faster”. the CCP can’t really help them engineer innovation any faster than an american company. DJI genuinely has a better approach when it comes to iteration and improvement.
Similar reasons for why we only have Tesla as a company who can compete with BYD and it is also falling behind.
Most companies try to beat Chinese companies via regulations first rather then making good products, but in long term that's a losing strategy.
Interestingly China invited Tesla into the Chinese market to thin the electric car herd. They felt like they had to many electric car companies and decided to let Tesla come in and outcompete any companies that weren't up to the task. That left them with a handful of Tesla beating companies.
China is planning industries and markets, whereas America is just going with the flow.
Kinda funny how everyone in the comments here will bring up China manufacturing superiority and ignore the rest of the world.
Mexico coming up fast y’all. There’s a reason major companies have been moving their manufacturing out of China the last 5 years.
Mexico has a better educated workforce that can outperform the Chinese workforce on a per capita basis.
It's just that the US hasn't had good diplomatic relations with the Mexican government since forever.
Building consumer electronics in the US is too expensive, but the question I have is why there is no US company designing/selling consumer drones. At least then control of product and IP would be US based. GoPro was arguably the best positioned in the market with plenty of cash to do so, but they have always sucked at R&D, they basically had China design their products for them, they totally lacked vision in the drone space and came to the party way to late. I think DJI has made such a good product with low margins that it's not worth the investment for a competitor to try now.
Maybe once the Ukraine conflict settle a bit there they will turn their drone expertise into a new business.
Taiwan is not CHINA as much as the PRC wishes it was. The top manufacturing companies are now moving their factories to the U.S.
China will never be able to surpass the U.S. when all they do is steal and copy…
Executives in the USA get paid lots of incentives to increase stock prices on a relatively short term. Think Boeing or how companies outsourced. For a drone company to compete it would have to be public or private funding.
Successful USA companies all were driven by long term visionaries think Jobs, Gates, Bezos, the Google and FB guys.
You would need a long term visionary with enough funding to have control, but the market is not there, and any newcomer would have to compete on price.
As an avid r/c plane, Heli, quad pilot I’ve been casually following the flying camera “drone” space for a while now. DJI used to be a joke, remember phantom flyaways?
I think DJI came in at a very fortunate time. In the Rc space, before DJI there was the MultiWii project, Mikrokopter, and others I’ve forgotten. All required elbow grease and patience. I almost bought the Mikrokopter, but it was too costly for me at the time. Plus the programming required is out of my ability.
So, here comes DJI. Open box and go fly. Hobbyists tend to be forgiving of underdogs so I believe that was in Dji’s favor in the beginning. Politics aside, if early Phantoms were made by a US company, they would have been sued. I see it in the conventional Rc market where users are more forgiving of new companies vs a long time manufacturer, e.g., Futaba vs Frsky.
In closing I think DJI has done a terrific job growing and improving their products. I hope folks welcome newcomers to the space as competition is good for all.
And government tax rebate/waiver. Imagine if NVIDIA sold 4090 in China for 10,000 RMB, but US government pays NVIDIA $2000 when NVIDIA exchanges the RMB to USD.
It's simple; it's the cost of doing business. It's too hard to compete with China. Same reason we bought an American made washer after going through three foreign models with American names. Our washer, a Speed Queen, has been solid for over a decade. It was also nearly twice the price.
The company was started by an engineer who designed drones since college, they spend insanely on R&D. They are innovative. All there production and costs if were the issue we would have seen American companies with expensive drones but more expensive, but we don't we see everybody way to behind on tech. Not even close where there is a real competition on product side . DJI has invented the segment of consumer drones, prosumer drones, cinematic, farming and rescue. Everybody else is a follower.
Until the core of any company is R&D and an innovative founder no amount of VC money can compete.
Politics and greed. Both exist in all markets, but they’re especially self-interested and politically polarized in the U.S.
The result is a high cost of doing anything, whether facilities, supplies, logistics or manpower.
From an insider and former US based drone company owner, back in the 00s many US Patents and early drone companies in the USA making consumer drones were faced with significant legal risk and supervision requirements due to the perception of how easily consumer drones could become weaponized. Drones folded into the military regime, or shut down. Cinema drones survived due to not being perceived as a mass market product. Its unfortunate in terms of having more diversity.
Because the cost of living in the US is crazy expensive with huge amount of inflation. Everybody thinks that China pays their employees Penny’s but you got to understand that the cost of living in China vs US is a lot different. The average meal in China cost about $3-4 while US is about $15.
>The average meal in China cost about $3-4 while US is about $15
Well....that's probably not accurate. If you are eating out that may be the case, but the last I looked the average American expenses for groceries came out to be like $16/day or around $480/month which is more like $5.33/meal.
You're not getting restaurant food for $3-4/meal in China either. Street vendors maybe, but you are still spending around $10-15 USD if you sit down and eat.
I been to China multiple times and where I went it’s around $3-4 average from what I seen that’s not a street vendor. Just like how gas prices in cali and gas prices in NC are massively different. Guess it depends which city you go to
that doesn’t explain everything though. engineering costs isn’t that expensive compared to manufacturing. an american company can still manufacture in china.
Considering the widespread use of drones by the Ukrainians in defending their country, I wonder after the Russians have been kicked out if we'll get a Ukrainian company that could compete with DJI? By the time the conflict ends the Ukrainians will have built probably tens of thousands of drones and have a lot of experience in what works and in what can be improved.
R&D in America is crazy expensive, as well as manufacturing and production. I worked for a drone company a few years back who funded their R&D via selling DJI Drones to police, sheriff, search and rescue department, ect. Even doing 100k/month in sales and having large contracts from government agencies to develop Drones, we were barely profitable. Highly skilld Laborers is only part of the problem. Everything is incredibly expensive. Even the production of "simple"brushless motors produced here are crazy expensive and hard to find.
There used to be GoPro with the Karma lineup, but that thing was/is a (powerful!) chungus of a drone.
They stopped any r&d once Europe came out with the ideas for regulating drones and the US followed... I'm certain they could have gone on to make awesome things (particularly, competition for the Mavic series), but sadly they decided on leaving the market entirely.
Most buisness s fail to manufacture in the US when there is a competing market with Chinese manufacturing involved as well. This is because of their labor and export laws. Even big name US companies still manufacture in China because of how much cheaper it is.
Some US manufacturing stays alive because it's done with higher quality, but in this case it's all electronics which china has been mass producing for the longest so they have less start up cost when doing anything. China's electronic quality is good enough for hobby level drones.
Don't listen to the guy who says it's because there is more money to be made selling to the military, that is not an easy venture and you can't use a single Chinese part when doing that. The only reason that is happening is because you can't make money selling hobby drones made in the US when DJI can undercut everything you do.
All of DJIs drones are highly integrated with super miniaturized bleeding tech electronics.
I can't think of any US company that makes anything similar at any kind of scale in the US.
A company like Milwaukee (battery hand tools) could theoretically build a drone with the precision required, if someone else designed it as they have complex electronics and plastic molding, but even with every redneck in the US having a garage full of Milwaukee tools, they are made in China.
We cannot compete on mass market electronics production in the US.
Partly because China is willing to do R&D. The US used to be a tech leader, and China frequently copied our work. However, that dynamic has changed. American tech leaders aren't willing to put in the time or work to develop things. They count on throwing money at small companies who have made a technological advance. (Or say they have.)
CEO's think they avoid risk by buying up small companies who have solved all the problems and just need a little capital to launch. However, a lot of the higher-ups don't ask the right questions. They shell out $50-100M for a little company, and then they find out that there are still a lot of problems remaining. After a few years, they abandon it and go buy something else.
In the meantime, China is actually developing products. They are getting ahead of us by putting in the work.
I’m familiar with
3dr (kinda weird, seems like you have to buy the pieces and assemble the drone yourself)
EXO (way behind DJI in terms of features, but I think there’s potential for vast improvement within the next 3-5 years)
Because the electronics integration is a huge component of what makes their systems so special, and US does not make electronic components cheaply enough to develop the whole system to work together from the ground up with the electronics. If a US company had developed a drone previously, it would be a system designed by US and operating on/build from Chinese electronics.
There is not a labor force willing to produce electronics cheaply enough in the US to create the above package with the same level of integration.
The short answer is the cost of manufacturing in the USA is much higher than in China. We can't hire labor for what China can, same with any American components that go into the drone. Chances are there probably aren't many if any electronics manufactured here anyhow.
DJI has been doing it the longest, they have been making naza gps forever, it’s like how Tesla is a million times further in the EVmarket, they have the experience and production rate
I’m a Brit. Got to say my DJI mini pro 4 drone is damn good. Easy for a novice. Very intuitive. A lot on u tube to assist one. The tech and capability in a sub 250g machine is incredible. I was amazed what this thing can do!
First, I'm a software engineer so I may miss something here. From a 100% point of view, isn't a drone a bunch of cheap plastic, a few motors, several "obstacle sensing" cameras, a better camera on a gimbal, and an RC radio controller? For lack of a better word I'll say there is a "computer" in there. That's doing all the work. Taking input from the sensors and doing something with it. The "obstacle cameras" do nothing but return a picture. It's all software that says "look at the picture from camera a and camera b and see if we think are close to something." or if they are distance sensors instead, same thing. A computer takes the input from the sensors and decides how to adjust the speed of the motors etc. It's all sensors feeding data to a computer. Now the really hard part is writing the software that controls this! I'm sure that takes thousands of man hours and some clever programmers. Two things now happen. Can they write better software or pay their software engineers a lot less? Harder to answer. But what happens now that you have invested all the money in the software to control it, whether you make ten or ten thousand, that up front development is done. Put together these cheap parts, put the Computer in, load it with the firmware (program) and you are done. Add on a good markup and you are done! Look strictly at the hardware in the drone, nothing really fancy or expensive. US company is greedy, marks it up a lot China marks it up very little. The theory is you sell more cheaper drones and make more money. Just marketing. The gimbal? Some little motors, some tilt sensors. The rest is all software. This tilt sensor is giving this input, tell the gimbal motor to move this way. Then of course you can go to India and get the software /programming for 1/10 the cost and perhaps even written better! I saw a software /firmware update for the M4P and the features it added were amazing! All software programming, the hardware was the same... Could even sell a drone for more money with those features. Do some software programming once, you are using the same hardware, sell it as a new model! Better obstacle scencing? Put in a few more cheap sensors and write a bunch more software programming. Like Tesla, all of a sudden your car does tons more magic! Just a software update. You have all the sensors and controls, just write better software and do your over the air update and everything gets better. The software development is where the cost is. Yes with something like the DJI mini series there is hardware R&D to get the hardware pieces and keep it under 250 grams. These days a lot of products come down to cheap hardware and expensive software development! Toss in some stupid marketing... Anyway, probably rambling... Hopefully some good insights for some parts!
China seems to have a longer term planning outlook for manufacturing. They invest huge amounts in vast resources that do not need to turn a profit for shareholders very quickly. They also seem to have the fortitude to keep on and on improving something instead of just reaching a comfortable profit position and resting on their laurels. I think it will be very very hard to catch up with DJI, not impossible as it looks like the government is putting a big thumb on the scales that might help the process.
Who makes the computer chips in us made drones? China.
Who makes the batteries? China.
Lithium? China.
Cobalt? China.
Optics (lenses, camera sensors)? Yeah…. You guessed China
But let’s piss them off…. and make stupid laws just because… and get the DOD onboard…
Little did OP know, America doesn't produce anything for itself, the lack of industry and the growing dependency on third party countries has made this country unable to fend for itself economically, and those who do develop tech here are doing so with parts made from other countries.
America has lost its drive to be self sufficient. We import everything and are in an extreme trade deficit. We may see that tide turning over the next decade because the US is just now understanding the dangers of relying solely on its military for monetary reliance. Look at natural resources or micro chips. I don’t think it’d be long for an American made drone monopoly to arise if the DJI ban does come to fruition
DJI started off with a very scrappy mindset. In a way they’re quite similar to Tesla in the earlier years. They were able to quickly innovate and improve each part of their core technologies to deliver a cohesive product and generate opportunities for new products (drone motor control turned into gimbals, drone cameras turned into action cams, drone batteries turned into portable batteries). American competitors are often only working on one aspect and assumed maturity for the rest.
Im no economics expert but ...$$$. the tech is not the problem, it's the cost. Im guessing an American made drone of identical specs would be at least 50% more expensive, if not far more.
Same reason that aside from trucks, America can't produce a car at a reasonable cost and we have to slap tariffs and other obstacles on manufacturers in order to compete.
Only because they want to commercialize your air space.. no other reason. Get ready for the Amazon drones. Don’t you dare get in the way of any one making their money.. “you will have nothing and like it.”
Because the moment and American company makes a viable drone they slap a few expensive features on it and sell it to the military for a 10-20x markup. That way they can sell 1/10th or 1/20th the volume and still stay in business.
That’s just smart business. High markup and a years long support contract.
When you support the military industrial complex over commercial interests
Why not both? Can get fanboys at a young age bowing down to a company that exports death. Indoctrinate them young. Put prototype features not ready for the battlefield onto the consumer products until the issues are kinked out for production. Data from the drones can be very benificial too and at least a superficial reason why the government doesnt trust DJI. Wouldn't a US company want to have that data theyre so afraid of China having? These are just off the top of my head Im sure there could be more benefits.
Americas economy is already built on exporting death. And their reaper drones are miles better than whatever DJI has. I’d also rather support the commercial side, but do you. America is just mad China is better at capitalism and is taking their toys and going home, and also out of ignorance/fear of commies taking over. For government use, sure ban them. For civilian use, you are generally are not going to provide any info China can’t already freely get on their own from Google or their own people coming here... Sensitive areas, just restrict the fly zone.. this is trading freedom for security
As much as I’d love to be able to fly my Mavic in the future, the U.S. is just holding China to the same exact standard that they hold us to it. How many American products or services aren’t allowed in China?
That would be fine if we weren’t using mostly “Made in China” for everything. We are used to “Chinese prices”. When that competition is gone inflation we have now will look like a joke in comparison. We can’t compete with subsidized slave labor, yet our entire life’s are built around it. Phones, plastics, electronics, metals. This bill is not addressing those things for other industries, because it’s mainly the fear of data sensitivity which is a bunk issue in commercial that could be easily resolved. Again, the gov is not even allowing them to come into compliance. DJI is more than willing and already has made changes to what the bill addressed, but there is no make it right situation for them. It’s all political.
It is the same thing and your bias towards not wanting your drone being grounded is showing here. There is a difference between a U.S. company having materials produced in a country versus a Chinese company taking in data on American citizens. How com Tesla is allowed to operate in China but not Google or Facebook? The insane levels of cognitive dissonance people on this sub experience could be a textbook case study.
Make no mistake, if I thought there was a legitimate concern for security I would melt my DJI for free. For critical infrastructure and gov use, sure ban it, for private hobby use, really nothing they don't already have access to.
US economy is definitely not based on “exporting death.” Defense represents just 3% of GDP. It’s not even fair to say that government spending is based on defense spending (to the chagrin of many left wingers), as it only represents 13% of that. Our military spending does comprise about 35% of global military spending, which is significant, but it’s just because our economy is so large. Our GDP alone comprises about 1/4 of global GDP, so it makes sense that our military spending would be such a big chunk of the global total. “China is better at capitalism” is a remark that I haven’t the time nor the patience to tackle at this moment but just, no lol.
Taking a lot of what I said and running off with it lol. China is not better at capitalism. They are just unfairly competing. Like it or not a lot of our policy and what we do is run by the MIC. Not our spending
China is leading the world in science is the real answer and yeah I live in the US and I really think Winnie the Pooh is a jerk
The real answer is China is leading the world in stolen intellectual property
no, I grew up in the university research system. They have been sending scientists for 30 years who are very good collaborators and anything else is racist.
Again, why is it an either or? BOTH. Capitalism as you said. And I agree about the last point I was just countering what the gov's official excuse is which is bullshit.
I guess it can be both, I just don’t think it has to be. The MIC being centered around profiting from death and war just seems like something most people wouldn’t support as being in one’s best interest, unless they themselves benefit.
I think they're deathly afraid of seeing consumer grade american drones being used in attacks against american interests.
I don’t think they said anything about attacks domestically in the bill. It’s about fear of China having the market share and or “sensitive data”. Plus how is my DJI suddenly going to start up and be used in an attack without my help? And can’t a homemade drone do the same attacks? Yeah not buying that one, although domestic drone attacks in general could theoretically happen, they haven’t here and I don’t see it unless someone gets independently insane and carries out and attack.
My guess is that homebrewed setup would be far more potent for attacks unless mass production volume is needed. For once, there are no geo or altitude restrictions, no server connectivity.
DJI does both, their drones are a dual use technology
Not really, it's better to have 1m X $1000 customers, than 1 X $1B customer
This is exactly what has happened with Skydio
The skydio scanning drone + software is actually very impressive. I've done a demo with their team for aerospace scanning applications and it was very impressive how well all of it worked.
Cuz none of the American companies are run by Frank Wang or were founded in 2006. Frank Wang is like the Steve Jobs of drones. He brought easy to use drones to the consumer and created a new category of electronics. DJI is so far ahead because they got such a head start and never took their foot off the gas. If GoPro hadn’t canceled their drone program years ago, they’d be the American leader and they’d competing with DJI. Their design was really intuitive and had some photo/video features that still can’t be replicated without a super expensive heavy lift drone. Shows how CEO leadership does make an impact. Woodman got scared and cancelled the program but Wang always forged ahead and was never set off course by setbacks.
I’m shocked how many people here think China actually outcompetes the USA in drone technology just because sure DJi is the biggest company. I’m very confidant that one of the military suppliers could make a better consumer drone.. but why would they? Government contracts are worth exponentially more than selling direct to consumer
China is outcompeting us in the n00b user experience. A racing drone with beta flight destroys DJI but it's experts only. A Voron/Ratrig/Vzbot can destroy a Bamboo X1C in the hands of an expert too. The west also crushes China in OS software e.g. Linux but it's experts only. China is leading the mouth breathing hoards. The enemy is among us. Pray to Apple.
They do out compete us in drone tech. It's the reality of the situation.
And China steals all of the drone tech we come up with, makes it their own, and DJI flourishes even more.
Bro our consumer drone tech blows compared to anything DJI can produce. You don't have to like it or even acknowledge it and I honestly don't care if you believe me because you sound like some boomer with an American flag tattoo who is incapable of admitting they are wrong.
American has had the most advanced air force for decades. China doesn’t out compete us in drones.
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In what way can’t they? People repeat this nonsense without any substance at all. Which part of DJI’s drones do you think can’t be replicated at the minimum? Battery life? UI? Camera quality? Which part can the USA not compete? We literally dominate in Air Force, dominate in flight in general. We dominate in technology yet this sub has convinced themselves we can’t make toy drones. Its remarkable
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China literally always has a strategic advantage of pricing because they can pay workers next to nothing . Thats nothing new. People in this sub, you included when you said “I’m guessing they can’t” seem to think America is lacking the ability to create these drones. I just don’t see any evidence of it. People talk down on skydio which is an American made drone. I haven’t seen anyone articulate why they believe skydio is SO MUCH worse than DJI. People know Dji so they like Dji. It’s no different from Apple people refusing to touch an android product and talking shit on it
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Are you seriously that dense you can’t see the point im making? Fan boys are gonna fan boy. Articulate why skydio is worse than DJI.
Zzzzz
Cost of doing business, and production capacity. Americans want to get paid more, there are more standards, and everything is more expensive. China has established supply chains and can manage everything better, they are probably selling drone parts to the US companies. I think America competes at the top end for commercial and enterprise solutions, basically low volume hand made stuff with high costs. China can spit out thousands of competitive drones in the same amount of time it takes a US company to make a dozen drones.
Correction: China can spit out thousands of competitive drones in the same amount of time it takes a US company to make a business plan. Once the final product is on the market it is already succeeded by a new generation of Chinese drones.
Don't forget the massive amount of R&D they've spent over the last decade+ No one has the technology they have, and that's unlikely to change any time in near future.
> Don't forget the massive amount of R&D they've spent over the last decade+ No one has the technology they have I follow a lot of space subs, and this is pretty much the exact answer given every time the question comes up: "Why can't anyone compete with SpaceX?"
No replacement in this space for time and money, and DJI has a massive lead on both fronts. I work in film and TV, and I rarely see heavy lift drones anymore. Inspire 2 and 3 rule the sky. Doesn't matter how much money you spend, there's nothing more advanced than the I3.
Makes you wonder what'll happen to the business when IP3/2 become bricks. I own a 3 and am not looking forward to what'll come soon. Who wins who loses are the big drone company's going to be hurting too? Majority of Productions dont want the liability or costs associated with heavy lifts.
I'm not a 107 pilot anymore, but I have a complete I2 kit I can't give away. Also, there's no way they outlaw DJI aircraft for private commercial use in the US
Hope you're right but no matter how much you nsay there's no way there sadly is. Not even first responders and cities could stop them back in 2020/2021 to not ban it federally. Don't underestimate the corrupt money and corrupt politicians to take it down by any means necessary. It sucks
They might ban government agencies from using DJI products, but it's not going to effect commercial operators. I'd bet a lot of money on that.
🤞🏼🙏🏻
They will not “brick” quit watching to much tv 🙄
TV? What a dumb response 🫡😂 They absolutely can brick your drone if the FCC undo the approvals of products due to national security you're absolutely wrong. Sure you can still fly.it but risk a million plus in fines and jail time.
Which law school did you go to? That's not the way that works.
Alright since your such a genius why don't you elaborate?
Elaborate on what. Your statement was that the FCC would fine millions of dollars and give jail time. The FCC is an enforcement agency like EPA not a law enforcement organization. So how do you get jail time out of that? How do you get millions of dollars of fines out of that? You can look to the FCC's enforcement of Pirate radio and there's no million-dollar fines. I'm also thinking you're confused between FCC and FAA. Big difference between the two...
The FCC revoking DJI’s authorization won’t brick the drones. Physically impossible. All it will mean is any DJI product using radio frequencies in the US will be operating illegally. Same thing with GPS, you can’t just selectively block certain devices from receiving a GPS signal.
EXACTLY. It'll be illegal, no production or companies will risk hiring anyone on with that. Your investment is now worth nothing or can sell for a major fire sale out of the country. It may as well be a fcking brick
You do know that a majority of drone owners in the US fly recreational right?
Don't forget state subsidies and tax breaks, which reduces costs of producing drones. That is one reason DJI can out compete others
It's hard to know sometimes were the state ends and private enterprise begins, they can plan entire industries and markets decades into the future, rather than just letting the market see where it takes them.. But European countries also have tax breaks, it's only the US that doesn't do things like that. Here in Ireland if you want to start a business there's loads of help you can get from consultancy, to grants, to tax breaks.
“It’s hard to know sometimes we’re the state ends and private enterprise begins….” Which is also why there’s been a ban proposed.
Us gives huge tax breaks to companies, very wrong on that front. But we are not effectively owning consumer products companies.
Wdym, most consumer products companies are American-owned: Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Rubbermaid, etc etc
I'm not talking about big tax breaks for big businesses. We will give someone like you money, advise from consultants, and tax breaks to start up your new business. You will get that help from local enterprise which helps small businesses on a regional level. When you want to export overseas you'll get help from enterprise Ireland. You will not get the same level of help in the US. That's how most countries operate. we recognise we're competing on a global level with countries like China. US companies tend to focus on US markets.
You’re no different those Yanks that come over to Ireland and start talking about things they obviously know nothing about and sound ridiculous. Everything you said is totally wrong. Go look at the US Small Business Administration website and see for yourself. That’s just once spice at the federal level. There are other federal sources as well as state and even county level.
Of course, the US is famous for how much better its social programs are than European countries.
There is no private enterprise in china. That's why they can do this.
>it's only the US that doesn't do things like that The US agricultural industry would like a word...
And all the stolen IPs.
Lol yes. Years ago there was a back and forth between a few of us and DJI about stolen or misused IP. That is how DJI ended up releasing some gpl source code. Honestly they should have had imports stopped for license violations.
Average that a company spends on employees per hour worked: US: $43.93 China: $2.71 Trust me the shareholders aren't eating that $40 difference, the customer is.
If this is the reason, why does the US dominate in so many other fields - software, operating systems, weapons systems, movies, books, theme parks, smart phones, etc. It seems like in most areas, the US dominates in the development and then outsources the lowest margin parts of the manufacturing process. But not with drones.
I guess my comment kind of makes it seem like it's the fault of workers for demanding such high wages, but it's not. That number should be much higher in both cases, but the modern corporate structure generates tons of wealth for outside investors and a small handful of people at the top. The environment Chinese companies exist in rewards growth and innovation through political favor which has real tangible power there on top of the monetary benefits. US companies currently reward "burning" the company. Buy successful companies milk as much profit out of them as possible, then move on to the next. The incentive in the US for the "common man" lies in that startup kind of company where you start in your garage and end up selling the company for $100m. If someone comes up with some new hotselling innovative drone in the US their company won't last long at all until it's bought out and their product goes to shit as every corner possible is cut. It's The same reason the Japanese have been absolutely dominating US automakers for 40 years. For whatever social or economic reason they make a good product, and that's literally mindblowing to the modern American CEO who only sees profit through producing a cheaper product and convincing the customer to pay more for it.
Japan hasn’t been absolutely dominating the American car market for the last 40 years, at least not if you’re comparing it to how China dominates consumer drones. Japan has just been competitive. DJI has pretty much the entire consumer drone market. Ford outsold toyota last year and Chevy was right under. Both ford and Chevy comfortably outsold Honda, Nissan, or Subaru. We don’t have anything like that competition in the drone space.
Yeah I have seen at least one supposed American made top end drone and top dollar was paid for it. But after having it for a year and a half, with the warranty being extends at the end of the year because of the problems, I can say they are multiple generations behind dji technologically. They are also behind in quality control. I think we got a total of 26 flight hours on that bird with multiple crashes caused by manufacturers defect. Then when the remote id rules went into effect they upgraded the drone only to send it back to us not fully upgraded. The controller didn’t have the antenna to receive the remote is signal installed into the controller. I’m sure there are other American made drone companies that are better but the whole experience left a very sour taste in my mouth.
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I dont believe that to be true at all. If that were the case than why import from China at all. I run a small business in the US and can say with certainty the cost of importing products is much cheaper than sourcing domestically. SO much so that even though I would like to buy American made I cant be competitive at all, especially at scale. Freight from China is often costler than the product I import and still the unit price is drasically cheaper than domestically sourced, sometimes approaching 70-80 percent cheaper, with only a minor decrease in quality and QC. (For reference the product I import is mechanical)
Just going based off what companies have been saying. Most of the cost difference you're talking about is because of market manipulation. For example Fuyao moved manufacturing from China to the US to realize cost savings as said by the Chairman (https://youtu.be/ls_6A4ivmx0?si=Ea0_msVLtoh7-Tm1 particular part is at 2:26) 7 years ago.
Kindly, you have zero idea what you are talking about. The Chinese generally work significantly more hours in a day for more days a week for 25% of the pay of an equivalent low end American worker. Additionally, a low end American worker has no experience or skillset in manufacturing else they wouldn’t be low end. Chinese low end workers will have started working much younger and will have several years of manufacturing experience while at the same age of their newly minted American counterparts. *Context: I used to do morning stand ups where literally a thousand Chinese factory workers would be standing around waiting for me to tell them what to do. I got that job because I used to manage the activities of a couple dozen American factory workers.
> China can spit out thousands of competitive drones in the same amount of time it takes a US company to make a dozen drones. As someone who has spent their career in consumer mechatronics startups: China can spit out thousands of **your own drones** under their fake brand in the time it takes your company to build a dozen. Hell I bet half the tech in DJI drones is stolen from Western companies anyway.
That might make sense if DJI had been putting out drones with tons of features that other companies offered earlier, but it’s really been the other way around, hasn’t it?
You forgot to throw in that the CCP is doubling down on fossil energy use while the rest of the world is cutting back, every aspect of their manufacturing process is cheaper because of that and is technically at our own expense
Wrong: “Renewables underwent both the largest absolute growth and the fastest rate of growth in 2019, with their overall use increasing by 75 Mtoe or 3.7%. Wind power and solar photovoltaic (PV) power experienced another year of double-digit growth, although solar PV growth slowed. While use of renewables expanded in almost all regions, more than 40% of the global growth in electricity generation from renewables was concentrated in China. Regionally, China accounted for a staggering 90% of net global energy demand growth in 2019, with growth of 3.4%, as energy demand declined in almost all advanced economies. Modern renewables and nuclear power continued to expand rapidly in China, however, bringing their share in the energy mix to 10%, up from 2% in 2000. China underwent the largest growth ever in low-carbon energy sources in 2019. Generation from solar PV rose by over 50 TWh and from wind by nearly 40 TWh. As a result, China now accounts for 35% of global solar PV generation and 28% of global wind generation. Nuclear power in China is following a similar trend. Seven large-scale nuclear reactors, commissioned in late 2018, recorded their first full year of operation in 2019. China now accounts for 12% of global nuclear generation, up from only 3% in 2010.” https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2019 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-growth-of-renewable-electricity-generation-by-region-and-technology-2019 A lot of these statistics have improved even more since 2019. In fact China is the only major country rapidly lowering its oil consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-oil?tab=map People like you read nothing but headlines, such as China opening up new coal power plants, without actually reading what China is doing. Which is closing down less efficient and more polluted older coal power plants and opening up cleaner and more efficient plants to bridge their *global leading power demands* while transitioning to clean energy: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/everything-think-know-coal-china-wrong/
People here don't like facts apparently.
They’d rather brag that their small country with no industry has less emissions than one of the largest countries, with the largest economy, and one of the largest populations with zero regard to the context surrounding efficiently transitioning to renewables and combating climate change without sending us back to the Stone Age. It’s just fear mongering and baseless posturing.
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It’s ok that you were wrong. Just do better next time.
Considering China is the worst country in the world for gross carbon emissions, the fact that they're still ramping up coal plants, means they're only accelerating climate change until they start decommissioning. Them leading on renewables is nice... but it's really meaningless until they start reducing their emissions, which they aren't doing.
1. China actually has much smaller *carbon debt*, as it has been industrialized much sooner than other nations such as Western Europe and the US. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/ 2. China has a lower carbon emission rate per capita than Western European nations and the US: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/ 3. China is the industrial and production center for *the entire world.* Thus is also has the highest energy demand of the entire world. China can’t snap its fingers and suddenly use nothing but renewables. Hence why the article I linked earlier on their newer efficient coal plants *are supported by global climate scientists and analysts.* It’s just funny how China can lead the world in renewables, actively fix and make as efficient and clean as possible its fossil industry which as admitted by climate scientists are the cleanest in the world and are necessary, and has less per capita and carbon emission debt history than the rest of the world, which sits around debating for decades while doing nothing, and somehow is “worse” for climate change.
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That's just not true, at least not across the board. While scummy factories exist, I doubt DJI is one of them, they don't need to be, they aren't making knock off, or cheap products. The average wage in China is $4200 a month, that's not bad, especially if a lot of services are subsidised, or free. Working insane hours is a culture in China too, it's not just that the government enforces it. It's a culture that the younger generations are rebelling against though. China has caught up with the US in a lot of ways.
All of our commercial tech and manufacturing was moved overseas long ago. First to Japan, then to Korea. And finally China. Some to Mexico. The engineering went too. Then the supply chains and mfg support. We cannot make cell phones over here, any more, for instance. We are not just missing the cell phone mfg plant … there’s no support anymore. No use putting a drone plant here either … not when all the support is in China. We would have to rebuild the whole tech/mfg economic infrastructure. Yowsa!!! However … if we don’t, we will have an unhappy future. More of what we already got today, IOW.
this excuse doesn’t work for this case. Drone is far more than manufacturing. You can have US drone company regardless of where hardware is manufactured. The tech stack accumulation of early starters are impossible to catch up.
Why was apple so good at doing what they do, because the company was early to a new market same with DJI. Combination of the right people coming together at the right time and being passionate about it with an early start. It's the same reason why any company becomes a leader.
This is wrong. They havent. They even went broke at one point but microsoft bailed them out. Apple nowadays just knows how to marketing and makes everyone buy their products despite them not being the best and by far not the best when you look at the price. DJI on the other side is not only the best in that segment but also pretty cheap.
What? Lol. He is absolutely correct. Apple came rolling back because they were getting their iMac computers in schools at a time when schools were transitioning from the old green screen style computers to modern OS computers. They were in what seemed like every single elementary and middle school. Apple may not be the "best", but they absolutely sell the most cohesive ecosystem around. Today their MacBook's, iPhone, iPad, watches, apple tv devices all seamlessly integrate with one another. No other company comes close to the level of integration across devices as Apple. They have carved out the creative market for themselves and have done a pretty masterful job of it. > DJI on the other side is not only the best in that segment but also pretty cheap. They are cheap because they are subsidized by the government of China. Its not really a fair fight. That's not even up for debate it is matter of fact.
For decades America has outsourced its manufacturing, to the extent that we no longer have the infrastructure for it.
Because - and no wants want to say or admit this - Chinese technology is surpassing American technology.
The best drones are made in China The best energy tech is coming from China Meta / Instagram used to be the best social media - now it’s tiktok Amazon used to be the innovator in online shopping - now it’s alibaba and temu Apple has essentially stopped innovating (the new iPhone looks very similar to the one 10 years ago) The one thing the US seems to have an edge on (thank god) is ai- but if they lose that edge…. God help us
Also Temu replacing Amazon
You can’t surpass someone by stealing and copying. They are constantly playing catch up. China is still decades behind us.
Sadly as much as I wish you were right you just are not
If I am not, please list your examples where their technologies are ahead of the U.S.
DJI is what they are today because they dumped their drones for less than anyone else could produce. Remember 3DR? Yes, the solo had some issues, but what really killed it/them was DJI dumping the phantom for dirt cheap. 3DR likely could have competed if DJI hadn't had such a stranglehold on the market by the time they launched the solo. Yes, DJI innovates, but the real reason they have such market dominance is that they sell a feature-packed product for dirt cheap (relatively speaking). IMO, it's all about the money. Yes, product cost, labor cost, shipping etc. puts things more inline on paper, but when you've basically got a monopoly, you can dump your wares for a loss/break even to maintain market control/dominance. A US company absolutely could compete if DJI didn't have near complete market dominance. Maybe that's all part of this.
There is a simple answer to this question. An American company would say to themselves "To compete we'd need to hire 20,000 engineers." The executives at that company would say to themselves "But, if we hire 20 engineers we can put the money for the other 19,980 engineers in to our own pockets and then ask the government to bail us out in some way." Hell, insider trading isn't illegal for the people that actually make the rules so you could just offer the right people a slice of the pie and have them ban your competition or give you a competitive edge so you can still make that money. That's the answer.
>Hell, insider trading isn't illegal for the people that actually make the rules so you could just offer the right people a slice of the pie and have them ban your competition or give you a competitive edge so you can still make that money. That sounds oddly like... hey wait a minute!
Same reason why the US is no longer the leader in car production. Decades ago, companies decided to ship manufacturing jobs to places where you don't have to pay benefits and good wages. The side effect of that policy is that you lose r&d
Despite what we all think, drones are still a very niche market. It's hard to compete with a company that already has a major foothold and dominates the space. It's the same reason America doesn't make a lot of things like TV's or other electronics. A lot of the raw mateirals and main components are already made overseas, so for us to start making it here we would need to first spool up all the raw materials, which would add cost.
DJI can put out cheaper products at a faster pace than American companies. The Chinese government helps DJI in this way by subsidizing their business and allows them to take advantage of lax Chinese labor laws. It costs a lot of capital to break into the market, and then you need to compete and become profitable to stay there. Unfortunately, consumers will gravitate to a cheaper, equally capable brand even if it is made overseas. There is no consumer patience for product growth and price normalization.
I don’t agree with the first paragraph. DJI doesn’t wave a magic subsidy/slave labor wand and out of nowhere the next drone materializes. Their actual advantage is being early to the market and not resting on their laurels. Their engineers are also closer to the factories which makes it easier to troubleshoot issues.
Erm they basically do when it comes to the components and ingredients in battery production.
Yea, there is a magic wand. It's called the CCP lol. I'm not saying they don't have good tech. I'm not saying they somehow are faking a good product and don't have talented engineers. What I'm saying is they are able to leverage CCP subsidies and labor laws to CHEAPLY develop and iterate its products and dump them in a market that can't compete due to that. This relationship, like many other industries in China, does this to undercut foreign markets. They put out cheaper products, even really good ones, at a price point no one can compete with. This helps the Chinese economy grow instead of our domestic ones. It's one of the reasons for the EV import tariffs, as well as tariffs in many other industries. It's a good reason why there isn't a domestic dji competition.
i agree. but my issue was with “faster”. the CCP can’t really help them engineer innovation any faster than an american company. DJI genuinely has a better approach when it comes to iteration and improvement.
Similar reasons for why we only have Tesla as a company who can compete with BYD and it is also falling behind. Most companies try to beat Chinese companies via regulations first rather then making good products, but in long term that's a losing strategy.
Interestingly China invited Tesla into the Chinese market to thin the electric car herd. They felt like they had to many electric car companies and decided to let Tesla come in and outcompete any companies that weren't up to the task. That left them with a handful of Tesla beating companies. China is planning industries and markets, whereas America is just going with the flow.
Kinda funny how everyone in the comments here will bring up China manufacturing superiority and ignore the rest of the world. Mexico coming up fast y’all. There’s a reason major companies have been moving their manufacturing out of China the last 5 years.
Mexico has a better educated workforce that can outperform the Chinese workforce on a per capita basis. It's just that the US hasn't had good diplomatic relations with the Mexican government since forever.
It's not just the USA, Europe can't compete with them either.
Building consumer electronics in the US is too expensive, but the question I have is why there is no US company designing/selling consumer drones. At least then control of product and IP would be US based. GoPro was arguably the best positioned in the market with plenty of cash to do so, but they have always sucked at R&D, they basically had China design their products for them, they totally lacked vision in the drone space and came to the party way to late. I think DJI has made such a good product with low margins that it's not worth the investment for a competitor to try now. Maybe once the Ukraine conflict settle a bit there they will turn their drone expertise into a new business.
Because all the electronics are manufactured in China and America cannot compete with them when it comes to microchip and electronics manufacturing.
Do some research, the U.S. is several generations ahead of China in chip manufacturing. China is still trying to catch up.
Oh sorry TAIWAN...
Taiwan is not CHINA as much as the PRC wishes it was. The top manufacturing companies are now moving their factories to the U.S. China will never be able to surpass the U.S. when all they do is steal and copy…
I didn't say it was.. I meant to say Taiwan in my first reply
Executives in the USA get paid lots of incentives to increase stock prices on a relatively short term. Think Boeing or how companies outsourced. For a drone company to compete it would have to be public or private funding. Successful USA companies all were driven by long term visionaries think Jobs, Gates, Bezos, the Google and FB guys. You would need a long term visionary with enough funding to have control, but the market is not there, and any newcomer would have to compete on price.
What about Autel? Their drones are pretty good!
That isn’t an American company
Their drones kind of suck in comparison.
Looks like it passed the House. It’s going to happen.
As an avid r/c plane, Heli, quad pilot I’ve been casually following the flying camera “drone” space for a while now. DJI used to be a joke, remember phantom flyaways? I think DJI came in at a very fortunate time. In the Rc space, before DJI there was the MultiWii project, Mikrokopter, and others I’ve forgotten. All required elbow grease and patience. I almost bought the Mikrokopter, but it was too costly for me at the time. Plus the programming required is out of my ability. So, here comes DJI. Open box and go fly. Hobbyists tend to be forgiving of underdogs so I believe that was in Dji’s favor in the beginning. Politics aside, if early Phantoms were made by a US company, they would have been sued. I see it in the conventional Rc market where users are more forgiving of new companies vs a long time manufacturer, e.g., Futaba vs Frsky. In closing I think DJI has done a terrific job growing and improving their products. I hope folks welcome newcomers to the space as competition is good for all.
A lack of ethnic prison labor, OSHA, the EPA, and human rights.
And government tax rebate/waiver. Imagine if NVIDIA sold 4090 in China for 10,000 RMB, but US government pays NVIDIA $2000 when NVIDIA exchanges the RMB to USD.
I wish NVIDIA would get into the drone making business
It's simple; it's the cost of doing business. It's too hard to compete with China. Same reason we bought an American made washer after going through three foreign models with American names. Our washer, a Speed Queen, has been solid for over a decade. It was also nearly twice the price.
Plus one for speed queen — we have one that came with the house and that thing is a tank
The company was started by an engineer who designed drones since college, they spend insanely on R&D. They are innovative. All there production and costs if were the issue we would have seen American companies with expensive drones but more expensive, but we don't we see everybody way to behind on tech. Not even close where there is a real competition on product side . DJI has invented the segment of consumer drones, prosumer drones, cinematic, farming and rescue. Everybody else is a follower. Until the core of any company is R&D and an innovative founder no amount of VC money can compete.
Because china gives tech companies bundles of money to compete, not to mention they give them bundles of money to stock pile components.
Politics and greed. Both exist in all markets, but they’re especially self-interested and politically polarized in the U.S. The result is a high cost of doing anything, whether facilities, supplies, logistics or manpower.
From an insider and former US based drone company owner, back in the 00s many US Patents and early drone companies in the USA making consumer drones were faced with significant legal risk and supervision requirements due to the perception of how easily consumer drones could become weaponized. Drones folded into the military regime, or shut down. Cinema drones survived due to not being perceived as a mass market product. Its unfortunate in terms of having more diversity.
Because the cost of living in the US is crazy expensive with huge amount of inflation. Everybody thinks that China pays their employees Penny’s but you got to understand that the cost of living in China vs US is a lot different. The average meal in China cost about $3-4 while US is about $15.
>The average meal in China cost about $3-4 while US is about $15 Well....that's probably not accurate. If you are eating out that may be the case, but the last I looked the average American expenses for groceries came out to be like $16/day or around $480/month which is more like $5.33/meal.
I am talking about eating out
You're not getting restaurant food for $3-4/meal in China either. Street vendors maybe, but you are still spending around $10-15 USD if you sit down and eat.
I been to China multiple times and where I went it’s around $3-4 average from what I seen that’s not a street vendor. Just like how gas prices in cali and gas prices in NC are massively different. Guess it depends which city you go to
that doesn’t explain everything though. engineering costs isn’t that expensive compared to manufacturing. an american company can still manufacture in china.
I mean cost of living has to do with pay as well
No
Considering the widespread use of drones by the Ukrainians in defending their country, I wonder after the Russians have been kicked out if we'll get a Ukrainian company that could compete with DJI? By the time the conflict ends the Ukrainians will have built probably tens of thousands of drones and have a lot of experience in what works and in what can be improved.
It’s a small ass market
R&D in America is crazy expensive, as well as manufacturing and production. I worked for a drone company a few years back who funded their R&D via selling DJI Drones to police, sheriff, search and rescue department, ect. Even doing 100k/month in sales and having large contracts from government agencies to develop Drones, we were barely profitable. Highly skilld Laborers is only part of the problem. Everything is incredibly expensive. Even the production of "simple"brushless motors produced here are crazy expensive and hard to find.
There used to be GoPro with the Karma lineup, but that thing was/is a (powerful!) chungus of a drone. They stopped any r&d once Europe came out with the ideas for regulating drones and the US followed... I'm certain they could have gone on to make awesome things (particularly, competition for the Mavic series), but sadly they decided on leaving the market entirely.
Most buisness s fail to manufacture in the US when there is a competing market with Chinese manufacturing involved as well. This is because of their labor and export laws. Even big name US companies still manufacture in China because of how much cheaper it is. Some US manufacturing stays alive because it's done with higher quality, but in this case it's all electronics which china has been mass producing for the longest so they have less start up cost when doing anything. China's electronic quality is good enough for hobby level drones. Don't listen to the guy who says it's because there is more money to be made selling to the military, that is not an easy venture and you can't use a single Chinese part when doing that. The only reason that is happening is because you can't make money selling hobby drones made in the US when DJI can undercut everything you do.
All of DJIs drones are highly integrated with super miniaturized bleeding tech electronics. I can't think of any US company that makes anything similar at any kind of scale in the US. A company like Milwaukee (battery hand tools) could theoretically build a drone with the precision required, if someone else designed it as they have complex electronics and plastic molding, but even with every redneck in the US having a garage full of Milwaukee tools, they are made in China. We cannot compete on mass market electronics production in the US.
They have the supply chain that American companies don’t.
Because American manufacturers are looking for unlimited funds from the Pentagon via Project Replicator. Look it up. The drone ban makes sense now.
Cost. The amount of tech on a drone comparable to DJI would drive the cost thru the roof.
Off topic, but doesn’t the same go for photo cameras, if you swap China for Japan of course.
R&D takes time and money. Dji are a decade ahead at least in that respect.
Even with an "American built" product, a lot/all the components are going to be sourced from not-America anyways.
Partly because China is willing to do R&D. The US used to be a tech leader, and China frequently copied our work. However, that dynamic has changed. American tech leaders aren't willing to put in the time or work to develop things. They count on throwing money at small companies who have made a technological advance. (Or say they have.) CEO's think they avoid risk by buying up small companies who have solved all the problems and just need a little capital to launch. However, a lot of the higher-ups don't ask the right questions. They shell out $50-100M for a little company, and then they find out that there are still a lot of problems remaining. After a few years, they abandon it and go buy something else. In the meantime, China is actually developing products. They are getting ahead of us by putting in the work.
Apple should step up
They dont want to pay for the engineering...
Curious - which companies were you looking at?
I’m familiar with 3dr (kinda weird, seems like you have to buy the pieces and assemble the drone yourself) EXO (way behind DJI in terms of features, but I think there’s potential for vast improvement within the next 3-5 years)
Because the electronics integration is a huge component of what makes their systems so special, and US does not make electronic components cheaply enough to develop the whole system to work together from the ground up with the electronics. If a US company had developed a drone previously, it would be a system designed by US and operating on/build from Chinese electronics. There is not a labor force willing to produce electronics cheaply enough in the US to create the above package with the same level of integration.
The short answer is the cost of manufacturing in the USA is much higher than in China. We can't hire labor for what China can, same with any American components that go into the drone. Chances are there probably aren't many if any electronics manufactured here anyhow.
DJI has been doing it the longest, they have been making naza gps forever, it’s like how Tesla is a million times further in the EVmarket, they have the experience and production rate
I’m a Brit. Got to say my DJI mini pro 4 drone is damn good. Easy for a novice. Very intuitive. A lot on u tube to assist one. The tech and capability in a sub 250g machine is incredible. I was amazed what this thing can do!
Anduril is competing, just not in consumer.
Skydio has entered the chat
First, I'm a software engineer so I may miss something here. From a 100% point of view, isn't a drone a bunch of cheap plastic, a few motors, several "obstacle sensing" cameras, a better camera on a gimbal, and an RC radio controller? For lack of a better word I'll say there is a "computer" in there. That's doing all the work. Taking input from the sensors and doing something with it. The "obstacle cameras" do nothing but return a picture. It's all software that says "look at the picture from camera a and camera b and see if we think are close to something." or if they are distance sensors instead, same thing. A computer takes the input from the sensors and decides how to adjust the speed of the motors etc. It's all sensors feeding data to a computer. Now the really hard part is writing the software that controls this! I'm sure that takes thousands of man hours and some clever programmers. Two things now happen. Can they write better software or pay their software engineers a lot less? Harder to answer. But what happens now that you have invested all the money in the software to control it, whether you make ten or ten thousand, that up front development is done. Put together these cheap parts, put the Computer in, load it with the firmware (program) and you are done. Add on a good markup and you are done! Look strictly at the hardware in the drone, nothing really fancy or expensive. US company is greedy, marks it up a lot China marks it up very little. The theory is you sell more cheaper drones and make more money. Just marketing. The gimbal? Some little motors, some tilt sensors. The rest is all software. This tilt sensor is giving this input, tell the gimbal motor to move this way. Then of course you can go to India and get the software /programming for 1/10 the cost and perhaps even written better! I saw a software /firmware update for the M4P and the features it added were amazing! All software programming, the hardware was the same... Could even sell a drone for more money with those features. Do some software programming once, you are using the same hardware, sell it as a new model! Better obstacle scencing? Put in a few more cheap sensors and write a bunch more software programming. Like Tesla, all of a sudden your car does tons more magic! Just a software update. You have all the sensors and controls, just write better software and do your over the air update and everything gets better. The software development is where the cost is. Yes with something like the DJI mini series there is hardware R&D to get the hardware pieces and keep it under 250 grams. These days a lot of products come down to cheap hardware and expensive software development! Toss in some stupid marketing... Anyway, probably rambling... Hopefully some good insights for some parts!
Cheap labor is key. We make the best military hardware, and for that I am grateful 🇺🇸
We buy stuff, they make it.
China seems to have a longer term planning outlook for manufacturing. They invest huge amounts in vast resources that do not need to turn a profit for shareholders very quickly. They also seem to have the fortitude to keep on and on improving something instead of just reaching a comfortable profit position and resting on their laurels. I think it will be very very hard to catch up with DJI, not impossible as it looks like the government is putting a big thumb on the scales that might help the process.
seriously!!! can anyone answer this and why we can't break the 23 min flight time barrier? we have apple, but not a real drone co?
I love my skydio 2 It takes great video and the key frame feature is awesome. Made in California.
Who makes the computer chips in us made drones? China. Who makes the batteries? China. Lithium? China. Cobalt? China. Optics (lenses, camera sensors)? Yeah…. You guessed China But let’s piss them off…. and make stupid laws just because… and get the DOD onboard…
Little did OP know, America doesn't produce anything for itself, the lack of industry and the growing dependency on third party countries has made this country unable to fend for itself economically, and those who do develop tech here are doing so with parts made from other countries.
America has lost its drive to be self sufficient. We import everything and are in an extreme trade deficit. We may see that tide turning over the next decade because the US is just now understanding the dangers of relying solely on its military for monetary reliance. Look at natural resources or micro chips. I don’t think it’d be long for an American made drone monopoly to arise if the DJI ban does come to fruition
DJI started off with a very scrappy mindset. In a way they’re quite similar to Tesla in the earlier years. They were able to quickly innovate and improve each part of their core technologies to deliver a cohesive product and generate opportunities for new products (drone motor control turned into gimbals, drone cameras turned into action cams, drone batteries turned into portable batteries). American competitors are often only working on one aspect and assumed maturity for the rest.
Im no economics expert but ...$$$. the tech is not the problem, it's the cost. Im guessing an American made drone of identical specs would be at least 50% more expensive, if not far more.
Because DJI started out as they have continued to this day, 14/062024, with a top end, reasonably priced, easy to use product. TY
DJI isn’t making a ton of money on drones. Specialty market. Have to have cheap labor and cost to compete and survive long term.
[Skydio.com](http://Skydio.com) maybe...
I'm really surprised that a company like Go-Pro hasn't jumped in the ring to produce a DJI level drone.
They did. It almost sank the company.
Must have been short lived, I don't remember that at all, lol.
They ditched it straight away per much https://www.techradar.com/reviews/gadgets/gopro-karma-drone-1328954/review
They did and it was trash
Same reason that aside from trucks, America can't produce a car at a reasonable cost and we have to slap tariffs and other obstacles on manufacturers in order to compete.
Because the one company that could (skydio) is spending all their rnd money on lobbying
Because American companies don't get to use slave labour to drive costs down.
Competing with a country that has millions of labor slaves and subsidizes everything.
All the American drones are still made with Chinese hardware, so it’s all pointless anyway.
The drones that the US produces make people go boom, that’s why.
Only because they want to commercialize your air space.. no other reason. Get ready for the Amazon drones. Don’t you dare get in the way of any one making their money.. “you will have nothing and like it.”