This month, China issued sanctions against drone maker Skydio, the largest drone maker in the US, because it sells its products to Taiwan. Skydio can no longer acquire the batteries it needs to serve its customers globally.
As reported by Financial Times and Engadget, the sanction has resulted in China cutting off the manufacturing of the batteries for Skydio drones.
“Our battery supply will be reduced for the next few months which will impact our customers. We have always manufactured our drones in the U.S., and over the last few years we invested massively in bringing up supply for drone components outside of China. Batteries are one of the few components we have not yet moved out of China,” Skydio’s CEO Adam Bry writes in a blog post on the company’s website.
“We have a substantial stock of batteries on hand, and our team was already developing alternative suppliers. But right now we don’t expect new sources to come online until the spring of next year.”
Because of the sudden shortage and the inability to replace the lost manufacturing until next year, Bry says that to continue delivering X10 drones to customers it has to take the “drastic step of rationing batteries” to one per drone.
The Skydio X10 was announced last September and includes a 640 by 512 radiometric thermal imaging camera that promises maximum sensitivity, a Type-1 50-megapixel sensor with a custom wide-angle lens, and a 64-megapixel “narrow-angle” camera which can read a license plate from up to 300 feet away and identify cars from three miles away. It is an enterprise-only product, however, and is not available to general consumers.
“This is a clarifying moment for the drone industry. If there was ever any doubt, this action makes clear that the Chinese government will use supply chains as a weapon to advance their interests over ours,” Bry continues.
“The drone market has historically been dominated by Chinese companies who are now rapidly losing market share to Skydio and our Western peers. This is an attempt to eliminate the leading American drone company and deepen the world’s dependence on Chinese drone suppliers.”
Bry adds that the sanctions are not only an attack on Skydio but also “an attack on you, our customers.”
DJI has come under increasing scrutiny in the United States which has even negatively affected the company’s ability to sell its new Air 3S drone through retailers. An outright ban on its drones is currently being considered by federal lawmakers. Skydio is an active lobbyist in the US and spent more than half a million dollars in 2022 and 2023. Bry denied that it was using that influence to try and get DJI drones banned.
“We were targeted because we are the largest drone company outside of China, and because we serve critical customers that advance our national security, but no Western drone manufacturer is safe,” Bry alleges. “As we develop the supply of batteries outside of China, we will share our work with our Western peers to help the world move on from this dangerous dependency.”
Image credits: Skydio