Autel Robotics out of Seattle really turned the drone world on its head when announcing the release of the EVO 2 drones. With three different camera systems and incredible specs, flyers of all experience levels seemed curious, if not ready to plunk down $1500 and more. And every one asking whether DJI finally has some competition, which only will help consumers on a variety of fronts.

I mean, how could you go wrong with a drone with a 40 minute flight time?

We may not find out anytime soon since a bug in their software stopped production of the EVO 2-8k model. This in turn slows delivery of the other models with better cameras. Autel did send out a note trying to explain it all to their followers. But a two-month delay is in order, and hopefully it won’t be longer.

As as experience droned pilot, who has used primarily DJI products for aerial photography and video, I was really hoping this was going to the time to jump ship. But a delay in production can mean a lot of things, unfortunately, most of them are not good. Especially when software is concerned.

Here’s the response from Autel:

Hello Everyone!

First, we want to thank all of our fans and followers. It doesn’t matter if you just follow one of our social channels, or if you fly our products every day. Your support and enthusiasm have always kept us going here at the Seattle office.

With the announcement of EVO II at CES, the response has been absolutely crazy. This community is exploding, and we thank you for your patience with us as we are still trying to catch up on responses.

We also want to be as transparent as possible and give you all periodic updates on the status and availability of EVO II. That way you have the most up to date information straight from us and not just rumors.

Our goal at CES was to get the initial units of EVO II (8k) into the hands of dealers by the end of January. Unfortunately, during production, we found a bug in our software that could limit flight performance under normal operation. Instead of shipping the hardware with a known issue and forcing users to perform day 1 updates, we have decided to delay the rest of production and shipments until we have resolved the issue. Our projected timeline is to have EVO II available for purchase in March. This is not a set date or time frame, and things can always change. But with the information we have today, that is our goal.

The team in Seattle is very small and we are adding channel support as we can. We are looking to start up our website newsletter again in the next few weeks. So for any future updates, please check our website, the official social channels, and emails coming directly from us.

We thank you for your patience. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get a hold of us at support@autelrobotics.com

Thank you all again and fly safe!

DJI really has a chance to impact the drone market with a pre-Autel release date of the Mavic 3. Somehow I don’t thinlk that will happen. DJI is so large now, they do not innovate at the pace of five years ago. Only time will tell.

—Peter Weinberger

pweinberger@claremont-courier.com