FAA Gives Amazon’s Drones the Go-Ahead to Carry Lithium-Ion Batteries

If you live in Arizona or Texas, you may want to invest in some flame-resistant umbrellas. Amazon announced Tuesday that it received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to deliver devices equipped with lithium-ion batteries via its Prime Air drones. That means devices such as iPhones, AirPods, and more can now be delivered by air in about an hour to Prime subscribers in eligible areas.

Amazon says shoppers who opt into drone-powered deliveries—currently only active in College Station, Texas, and the West Valley of the Phoenix, Arizona metro area—can now pick from 60,000 products that weigh five pounds or less. The company has also updated its delivery protocols; previously, customers would have to place a QR code on the ground for the drone to make the drop. Now, once the drone confirms it’s at the right address, it drops packages from 13 feet above the ground at a designated location without requiring drop-point signage.

That height shouldn’t be an issue for most lithium-ion equipped devices. The Department of Transportation’s guidance for shipping lithium-ion cells calls for packages containing the batteries to be capable of withstanding a 1.2-meter (about a 4-foot) drop test that ensures no damage is done—but that standard doesn’t apply to batteries inside a device. There’s always a non-zero chance that something goes sideways and a device sustains damage, but generally, anything the Amazon drone is dropping should be fine from that 13-foot drop. Hell, at least one iPhone managed to survive a fall of 16,000 feet, so this is nothing.

While Amazon is expanding the types of products it can deliver via drone, it’s still struggling to actually make those drops to more people. The company is locked into just a couple of markets despite raising the prospect of drone deliveries way back in 2013 — and making its first drop nearly a decade ago. Amazon finally received FAA approval last year to operate its drones beyond the visual line of sight, which has expanded its delivery range. But it keeps running into regulatory hurdles, both at the federal and local levels, that have slowed its expansion.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s competitors are starting to gain their own footholds. Walmart has teamed up with drone logistics firms Wing (which is owned by Google) and Zipline to offer delivery-by-air to shoppers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and claims to have the largest drone delivery offering of any U.S. retailer. Meanwhile, DoorDash has also tapped Wing to handle deliveries for it in the southern part of Charlotte, North Carolina.