Deutsche Post expands StreetScooter production | Hacker News Reader

Deutsche Post expands StreetScooter production

dpdhl.com

169 pointswibr63 comments

In my hometown they (i.e. the small "Work" carrier) are carrying out mail for about a year now. Super small, silent, pretty good interior, though the "Work" only has a range of ~80km. That#s perfectly fine for urban areas but they will probably find little use in rural areas.

Some more background: A few years ago, the Post wanted to slowly transition to electric cars but couldn't find a car manufacturer (IIRC they asked Daimler and BMW) to produce an electric carrier even close to their specification so they basically said "fuck it" and founded their own little startup-like manufacturer

So 'basic' electric vehicles have lower manufacturing hurdles to overcome?

Which hurdles? Electric vehicles are a solved problem. It's just the battery and the electronic to charge the battery were innovation is really needed to extend the reach. In NYC around 1910 all Cabs were full electric, the first official car of an Us president was an electric one. The post services in various countries used full electric cars up to the 1970s. Overall an electric vehicle has less parts and is simpler to design and produce. In China you see already many electric cars and even big Chinese built all electric SUVs. It seems like certain manufacturer of the old age will face reality very soon. There will be a disruption of the market, and they waited for decades and now they will loose a lot of market share.

And milk floats in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ethical-hipsters-are-driv....

"Hurdles" is too ambiguous and vague. I think the issue was cost and not application of existing technologies.

If specs do not require for a 800km autonomy, max speed of 170km/h and no leather seats, no auto-pilot, no high-end stereo system, and so on, then yes ("money" or lack of IT is a big "hurdle".. no?)

No the vehicle has to fit their specs which are rather specific. Some specs are seemingly "low tec" in some areas but not in others. For example range:a lot of routes do not exceed 50 km but standard manufacturers cramp as much range as possible into their vehicles thus driving the weight and price up. A delivery vehicle like this does not need the range but good luck telling that your average car manufacturer who also has to think about other customers (who usually care a lot about range).

Then the vehicle has a hight floor making it back friendly for the delivery person which is something unwanted in your average delivery truck. It limits the height of the goods you can transport but the Post does not deliver packages that huge.

This is a special vehicle for a certain purpose and no commerial manufacturer had interest in developing something like this.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity for a customization of an existing vehicle.

not if existing vehicle is already more expensive than it needs to be, due to meeting non-requirements for DHL

They're charging 32000 euros for those things, that's a lot of budget to work with.

For an already customized version. Once you start by buying a stock electric vehicle you've already blown a large chunk of your budget.

http://business.citroen.nl/bedrijfswagens/citroen-berlingo-e...

Which leaves 8K to do the customization and would not require the capital investment, on top of that they would have a much higher resale value when no longer needed.

The largest model of that has less load volume than the smallest "Work" model. Customizing that is going to cost.

Modifying 10,000 vehicles will certainly require large capital investment.

economics 101: they are selling them to third parties for that price (including some profit and negotiation margin). So they likely pay somewhere around 20-25k for internal use. That's ridiculously cheap for this kind of purpose built vessle.

Based on this report of what the USPS is asking to replace an ages-old design mail truck [1] ($30k per), EUR 25k sounds pretty dang good for a purpose built small-run pure-electric vehicle. I'd bet they could easily get the costs down to 15K EUR with appropriate volumes.

Maintenance costs on electric vehicles are a lot less, and obviously they don't use fuel, so that costs less too.

[1] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/06/broken_...

They don't use fossil fuels, but they do need to be charged, and a fleet of them would need some added infrastructure to charge simultaneously. But that's a one-time cost, in the long run they should be cheaper to operate, clearly.

Not really basic. It's being designed as an urban delivery vehicle, so built for lots of starts and stops, carrying a half a ton of cargo, and be able to maneuver city streets. Those sorts of conditions mean you're going to need a vehicle with a beefy chassis, beefy suspension, engine with a lot of torque and to be comfortable to get in and out of several dozen times a day. Those really aren't all that basic; you're building a freight platform with a wheelbase that's significantly smaller than the traditional freight vehicle. The US postal service is looking at building a similar vehicle to replace their iconic Grumman LLVs, and the entire cost of the program is expected to be into the billions of dollars. You'd be surprised how complicated "basic" can be.

The Post can make an objective decision about how much range they actually need, while regular carmakers have to built range vastly higher than most buyers will ever use, because those buyers will worry about whether they'll need it once a year.

I would assume that the 80km range was designed specifically to best match their needs. It is probably the optimal range for having the cheapest vehicle that can perform to their needs - and it might be more interesting for them to have more smaller districts anyway, as the storage capacity of the vehicle is another consideration.

I'd also guess that the vast majority of deliveries are in urban areas as opposed to rural ones (in Germany at least), so it makes sense to prioritise that.

Even more so if for all of the foreseeable future, nothing is keeping you from operating conventional cars in the outback. A large fleet, a well established distributed depot infrastructure, a very predictable route schedule focused around a few hours of each day. Perfect match for EV early adoption.

Also, Deutsche Post already uses (exclusively?) bicycles to deliver letters in cities. This would be the solution for heavier parcels.

Not exclusively. It seems to depend on the neighborhood. In some neighborhoods I've seen them using Renault Kangoos, which have a similar size compared to the StreetScooter Work.

Not entirely, StreetScooter was founded in 2010 and was bought by Deutsche Post in 2014.

This is rather brilliant, developing a series of electric vehicle specifically for their operations, only to find that these answer the problems for many delivery services around europe.

Vehicle website: http://www.streetscooter.eu/

Don't forget to checkout their behemoth pedelecs at 57 and 86 kg.

http://www.streetscooter.eu/modelle/work-s

http://www.streetscooter.eu/modelle/work-m

No idea why they are single speed. Have these people not heard of hills ;)

A local company uses eBullit, but can only get about 4 hours out of the 500w battery due to hills.

I could see an advantage in offering a 1000w light-moped version however these would be illegal on cycle paths.

> No idea why they are single speed. Have these people not heard of hills ;)

I think the idea here is that the electric motor will help in those cases.

It's a pedal assist variety of electric motor that provides up to 45km/h on the flat and 32km/h on mountains depending on the motor chosen.

http://www.go-swissdrive.com/en/the-go-swissdrive-system/mot...

Singlespeed, I assume you just got this from the drivetrain type which doesn't really relate to hub-geared electric motors.

They are purpose build for door to door postal letter delivery, sturdiness and low maintenance. Top speed is quite irrelevant and electric motor assisted operation is how is compensated for the weight and terrain. They are legal on bike paths since they are throttled to 25km/h so they still classify as normal bikes.

Unrelated, they do manual powered boats too: http://www.dpdhl.com/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2017/start...

German post office delivery river boat. How cool is that? I could see this becoming a "must have" thing in the San Francisco bay. ;)

You'd have people living in them to save on rent. And they'd make them self-pilot around the Bay to avoid the whole marina-liveaboard limitation issue.

They are single speed because with a load like that nobody wants to go anywhere close to the 25 km/h of legal motor assist.

I work next to a depot of those so I occasionally share a bike path with them while they are in cruise mode (moving to their delivery area, as opposed to going mailbox-to-mailbox). They go a brisk pace considering the load, but certainly not much faster than the speed required for comfortable balancing. This is no bike messenger from hell tool designed to win alleycat races (though that wouldn't exactly be the home turf of 2x11 componentry either).

Between 250W of assist for hops and acceleration and a very narrow speed band to optimize the gearing ratio for, you really don't need a multispeed transmission.

I have an electric bike with seven gears. I almost never shift because it's unnecessary. I can climb steep hills without shifting if I use the electric throttle.

Just to clarify your statement about batteries, you seem to have mistaken the motor rating for battery rating. Motors are rated in watts, batteries are rated in amp hours.

Same. Regularly go up a 10% grade.

Except for when I'm towing kids in a trailer. 70kg extra means that the motor will drop out when speed drops below 5-6 km/h, because it's a hub motor. 250W isn't quite enough in that situation. Am contemplating upgrading to a longtail now that the kids are older, and will definitely get a mid-drive if I do.

The mail delivered by these bikes is stored in pickup places along the route and at least occasionally I see replacement batteries picked up with the mail. So there's limited need for a larger capacity.

These huge storage boxes look like they would severely mess with balance. I can already feel the difference in maneuverability when I put a grocery bag in front of a bike, now imagine 30kg of mail in there.

This bike (the small one) is even designed for double that amount (60kg). As common as non-motorized post bikes are already, I guess you learn to deal with it.

1: https://windsorsradweg.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cropped-d...

They're sturdy containers along the center of the bike. I'm sure it feels a little different, but nothing too disconcerting. Besides, once they've reached their destination area, they're stopping every 20 meters to deliver mail to a different building.

They also have small support wheels that can be deployed to move the short distances from door to door.

I have an electric bike with front and rear racks plus rear side baskets. With them all loaded up the bike handles much differently but isn't hard to control. You get used to it quickly.

Notice that the handlebars are tilted while they front basket is straight. They're not attached to the forks, they're attached to the frame. While that's still a lot of weight (and heaven help you if it shifts during a turn) it's not going to have the same feeling as a basket which is attached to the bars.

It would be interesting to see if pick-up of these vehicles does take off. Frustratingly, at least in the UK, we already had this infrastructure for many years - we had "Milk floats" that were used to deliver fresh dairy around local neighbourhoods. In the late 60s we arguably had the majority of worldwide EVs, in exactly this role.

Clearly they were not particularly fast vehicles and the range wasn't necessarily massive, but they did the job and were used for a variety of tasks (most operators expanded from diary to a range of different, fresh, produce).

What killed them off - they are extremely rare now - was the rise of supermarkets and out-of-town shopping. I guess, though, that supermarkets won not from convenience but choice, and that internet shopping retains the choice element but now convenience could win out.

We used to have a milkman delivery but it seemed crazy to do this while going past much cheaper milk in the supermarket or even the corner shop.

It's very telling and somewhat disappointing that the Deutsche Post (not a traditional car maker) can get a fleet of electric cars up and running while traditional German automotive industry is still delaying as long as possible, showing off futuristic (and ugly) design studies instead of putting electric cars on the road.

All the German carmakers have the tech to produce them, that’s not the problem.

But there’s no demand for an electric car that costs 5 times as much as an equivalent gasoline car (VW up! is 7'000€, e-up! is 35'000€)

Apparently the Post has a sufficiently big demand, as do other European delivery agencies.

But it's made by the German automotive industry, just not designed and assembled by any of the existing front-end brands. The underlying component supplier network (and workforce skill pool) is the same. Tapping into that network might be difficult if you are some nameless, shaky startup, but if you are DHL they will be very willing to talk to you.

Understanding this is key to getting the German automative industry (or even the whole German economy). Your shiny new car model needs cylindrical fasteners (just as all do)? There is a company with 350 employees that does only that and can deliver just on time. Same with any other little component in a car.

I came to make a similar comment. Look at what Tesla had to do to manufacture in California (partner with old factory owner, get tons of federal loans), and they were lucky there was an old car factory in the Bay Area, it would never be sited there nowadays due to real-estate value. Maybe it would've been easier for them in Michigan, not sure. Or look at the Nissan Leaf, US models built in Tennesssee I believe, but had to be done by an established brand who retooled one of their factories.

By comparison, Germany seems to be the Shenzen of tooling and manufacture, enabling a start-up to build a niche electric vehicle such as this.

Similarly, can you imagine the USPS ever doing something like this?

The USPS wants one vehicle so it needs a much longer range. The Grumman LLV was specifically designed for the United States Postal Service with Grumman winning the contract for production... Approximately 140,000 LLVs are in the USPS delivery fleet.[6][7] A number were also sold to Canada, Mexico, and several other countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV On September 22, 2016, the United States Postal Service awarded the NGDV Prototype Contract to six selected suppliers: AM General, Karsan, Mahindra, Oshkosh, Utilimaster, and VT Hackney. Half of the prototypes will feature hybrid and new technologies, including alternative fuel capabilities. The prototypes will represent a variety of vehicle sizes and drive configurations, in addition to advanced powertrains and a range of hybrid technologies.[16]

The old LLVs were finally retired in Canada a few years ago due to spontaneously catching fire[1] but lasted 28yrs of heavy service.

[1]http://postalnews.com/blog/category/llv-fires/

That's the kind of thinking that leads to the JSF/F-35. :)

Sometimes, but economies of scale are moreover noticeable when you make 100,000+ of something than 200+.

I would say go electric, but with N optional and easily replaceable battery packs. So, routs that need 50 mile range get that and you can scale to 100, 150 etc, or add an extra pack when range starts to drop etc. This also lets you keep a motor pool of being repaired without needing an extra of each model.

StreetScooter started as a research project at the RWTH Aachen University, spun out as a startup, and was later acquired by Deutsche Post[1]. Hoping Germany can produce more such startups!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter

It's disappointing that the Sinclair X-1 (http://newatlas.com/sinclair-x1-pedal-electric/16838/) never made it to the market. I think there's a niche for a mass produced pedelec with a shell.

You can get fully-functional velomobiles which are basically "pedelec with a shell" but far from being mass-produced (I'm guessing you probably know this anyway). I'd love to have one but they are expensive and (in the UK) I'm sure some drivers would be very bullying or dangerous around them (it's bad enough sometimes on a bike). In the Netherlands, a different story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5x1Zw5kovA

The problem is that these types of wide pedelec do not cope with the way many councils provide cycle infrastructure requiring users to mix with cars. At which point being in a wider pedelec stops you filtering traffic and you just become 'stuck' in traffic.

Another issue is parking, with many bicycles, you can find a lampost/sheffield stand and just lock them to it, this seems to need a parking space.

Bit of electric delivery vehicle history that seems to be UK-specific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

They were gradually phased out from the 90s onwards due to the decline in demand for doorstep delivery. Maybe we'll see a comeback?

We had these where I grew up, all the way to the 2010s. They were slow and had limited range but that isn't a problem for milk delivery which is on suburban roads in the middle of the night.

However they were surprisingly noisy - I was a mild insomniac and always knew when 2.30AM came round because I could hear the milk float buzzing past outside.

I think there's been a lot of projects like this around the world? In Finland there have been the Elcat electric delivery vans for the local post office and others since 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcat_Electric_Vehicles

You see them around every now and then in private use, but of course the technology is outdated by now.

in Japan a delivery with a bicycle (for the last miles) is quite popular and works quite well: http://mamabicycle.blogspot.jp/2011/05/kuroneko-eco-delivery...

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