Google drones run into bad weather as cost-cuts bite
The latest Google drones have just started taking flight in the real world. But the team behind the technology is slowing down, trimming headcount and shelving initiatives as the experimental unit becomes the latest target of tightening budgets across parent company Alphabet Inc.
Project Wing, a unit of Alphabet’s X research lab, nixed a partnership with coffee giant Starbucks Corp, according to people familiar with the decision. Following the departure of project leader Dave Vos in October, the unit also froze hiring and began asking some staff to seek jobs elsewhere in the company, according to some of those people.
The decisions are part of a broader Alphabet effort to rein in spending and try to turn more experimental projects from loss-making risky bets into real businesses. Drones are in a particularly knotty place. US federal regulation does not yet allow for delivery, except in select test zones. However, Alphabet’s deceleration comes as other technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc, plow money into drone delivery.
“Project Wing has the potential to remove a big chunk of the friction in how physical things are
Project Wing has the potential to change how physical things are moved around Spokeswoman for X
moved around in the world,” a spokeswoman for X wrote in an email. “What we’re doing now is developing the next phase of our technology, and as always are thinking in a very broad way about all the potential use cases for delivery by unmanned aerial systems.”
In August, Project Wing won approval for test flights at a US site, part of a White House effort to encourage unmanned vehicle delivery. Then in September, Alphabet announced a new foray: a partnership with Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc to deliver food via drone at Virginia Tech.
Robotic burrito drop-offs are a far cry from Google’s initial aims. The unit first wanted to deploy drones to deliver health-care items, such as medicine and heart defibrillators. After those plans were scrapped, the unit moved to food and other perishables.
Alphabet was in advanced talks with Starbucks and had tested delivery with the coffee-chain operator, according to two people familiar with the plans.
Those plans were nixed, largely over disagreements about the access to customer data that Alphabet wanted, according to a former X employee.
Similarly, the unit was in talks to provide suburban grocery delivery in Ireland, where drone rules are less stringent than in the US Amazon’s Prime Air service, a competing effort to use unmanned vehicles, announced it was testing with the British government this summer.
The status of Project Wing’s effort in Ireland is unclear. An X spokeswoman declined to comment on those talks, as well as the Starbucks partnership and hiring decisions.
Project Wing, like many efforts inside X, has shifted directions several times. Early on, under the leadership of Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticist Nicholas Roy, it operated like an academic research project, according to former employees.
Vos, who joined Google in 2014, steered a different course. The aerospace veteran increased simulation testing for the drones and implemented a new product review system that reflected standards in the aviation industry, which are more rigorous than software testing, the former employees said.
Project Wing also hinted at aspirations aligned to Google’s mission — data collection along with delivery logistics.