Analyst Calls for Civilian Drone Exports to Scale Wartime Production Capacity
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@Andercot Policy instability and limited innovation investment create exactly this competitive gap in manufacturing. Stable, supportive environments are what enable production at scale and sustained advancement.
To win a war of the future you need to produce the most drones But I don't think defense spending in peace-time is enough to build the production capacity So we should be mass-producing drones for international civilian markets so production can turn on a dime for war https://x.com/Andercot/status/2074955950029721613/photo/1
But the DoD is seen as a high-margin cost-insensitive buyer, and US manufacturing can't undercut the low-cost civilian market DJIs What's winning battles in Ukraine? 7,000 drones a day, $600 bucks each, 97% Ukr built Not whats pitched to DoD - has to be high-tech, etc https://x.com/Andercot/status/2074955961174032521/photo/1
Since scale of production is the thing to get, you'd also favor margin-based pricing and not value-based pricing, but this becomes unattractive to venture investors VCs want to see high margins, not low margins on massive volumes But quantity is a quality of its own https://x.com/Andercot/status/2074955952001073193/photo/1