USPS sued by states and environmental groups over purchase of 8.6 mpg trucks
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
It seems like a USPS route is an awesome fit for EVs: - It can charge overnight at the facility
- it goes pretty slow most of the time, with a lot of stop and go. No need to go super fast, have excellent aerodynamics, or fancy features.
- emissions wise, 8.6mpg is really, really bad.
- cost wise, paying for gas for 8.6mpg trucks is really, really bad.
- No need for an extreme range. Just driving slowly around city/town blocks shouldn’t take that much energy.
- Lower maintenance burden for something that gets used every single day should save money.
- More space in the truck for packages because there’s no engine.
All of these together mean that a USPS EV doesn’t have the big concerns that normal consumers might have:
- No charging at home or at a rental place.
- No charging where they need to go. (USPS truck would have a static route, always in range of its home charger)
- Crazy features high-tech cars might have. (Can be super basic.)
So all in, I don’t get why they wouldn’t do this. I just can’t see a world where an EV is more expensive than a gas truck. Even if it’s a bit more up front, they have to save a ton over time with fuel and maintenance savings.
And it doesn’t even seem like range would be a problem on the vast majority of routes. I’m trying to think of an extreme route length, and it can’t be more than 100mi, right? That seems crazy high, and is also super low as far as EV range goes these days.
So what gives?
So far, data shows that well-made EVs have lower maintenance and repair costs than legacy vehicles in similar categories. There are definitely some fairly unreliable EVs—early leafs with horrible batteries (early technology), and exploding chevy bolts (GM...you tell me), but that isn't true for the latest or high end vehicles. Also, the USPS is self-insured (and therefore insurance costs are irrelevant), and chip shortages would really only impact the steady delivery of vehicles and (to a lesser extent) service parts.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-postal-service-plans-rai...
http://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/usps-doubles-ev-truck-order-but-e...
However USPS and Amtrek NEED to be run more like a business. The fact they have not been for decades is part of the problem with the services.
If we are talking something like the police, or fire or something like that I would agree that is dangerous to run those services like a business. I however do not put USPS on the same leave as police and fire.
they ship envelopes and packages from one location to another, that is a business and it should be run like one
You can take away the subsidies of course -- it would maybe be possible for Amtrak to operate profitably if it removed every route except the northeast corridor. But is that really want we want Amtrak for? To run one rail line?
Idk, I think that a USPS run like a business would either just decide not to operate in the less population dense parts of the US or charge them exorbitant rates for service. Even as someone who lives in a dense urban area, I think it's generally a good idea to have guaranteed mail service to anyone in the country even if that means that I'll essentially be subsidizing the cost of delivering mail to rural areas. I have trouble believing that USPS could be profitable, affordable to everyone, and available to everyone, and I'm much more willing to sacrifice the first one than either of the other two.
It could change things like Frequency of delivery, or other cost cutting but I have advocated for that anyway even for non-rural routes. personally i think residences should get mail delivery on Tue and Thur, and businesses on Mon, Wed and Fri with none of weekends. that alone would be a huge cost saving.
Considering Republicans have been trying to kill the USPS for a hundred years with increasingly restrictive policy changes and increasingly impossibly tight budgets (considering the scope of their task with heavy competition), I think you are entirely mistaken about where the problems are. That the USPS operates at all under such absurd restraints and tight budget is nothing short of miraculous. The problem lies elsewhere, namely, with the major political party that would strongly prefer no government services, and no government, really. Other areas of the world call them anarchists; here we call them Republicans.
Narrowing down the USPS debate to "operate" vs "not operate" is a false dichotomy. For example, how critical is 6-day delivery schedule to the least populated areas? Would a 5-day schedule work out reasonably well?
What does "more like a business" even mean here? Historically Amtrak and the USPS budgets have been subject to political push-pull, so here I agree, both institutions need stable budgets. Other than that though, Amtrak can never make a profit because its competition, automobiles and highways, are subsidized by the government (very few toll roads exist in the US, it's mostly combination State and Federal funding which builds highways.) The USPS might be able to turn a profit but it would be really difficult given the long (probably unprofitable) routes it's required to carry and its inability to control its own rolling stock and employ certain workers means it would probably be a lost cause.
If you mean an eye to efficiency and a buffer from the changing of governments, that I agree with.
Toll Roads is not the only User Fees applied to fund roads. Other Fees include but are not limited to Gas Taxes, Vehicle Excise Taxes, Registration Fees, License Fee's, Wheel Taxes, etc.
That is with out adding in other revenue's that should also be considered user fees but typically are not like Vehicle Sales Taxes, and Fines for traffic violations.
Americans pay a TON of money directly in fees for access to the road system above and beyond tolls
Further the Interstate system is considered to be a National Defense project, that citizens are allowed to use, kinda of like GPS.
>>The USPS might be able to turn a profit
"Run like a business" do not mean "turn a profit". Not all businesses are for-profit enterprises.
A better turn of phrase may be found in the axiom of "Government Programs are judged by their intentions, Private Enterprise is judged by their results"
"Run like a government" generally means a program is not judged by the results of the program, and any failing of the program is simply a matter of spending ever increasing amounts of money never critically looking at either the program itself or the assumptions of the programs
"Run like a business" means looking at the objectives, setting a goal to achieve the objective, taking action, then evaluating the results of the action. Looking for inefficiencies, bad objectives, false assumptions, etc etc etc.
I’m sure “rural America” would love that. The same for Amtrak.
it is moronic to claim other wise. People that continue to make this claim clearly do not understand how to run a business at all, and are operating under this weird anti-capitalism rhetoric...
as for Amtrak, I would be in-favor of a complete shutdown of that service, the USPS has some albeit limited constitutional basis for its existence, Amtrak does not
Anyone uses that as a justification for anything is just further perpetuating partisan divids not looking for solutions to any public policy problems
So is that you? Just a partisan hack seeing through the my tribe good lens of party politics
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the...
https://www.governing.com/finance/Are-Republican-States-More...
Just like old people on Medicare who are against “government run healthcare”.
They fail because they treat military spending incorrectly. Military is deploy based on the strategic needs of the nation, it is incorrect then simply include military related spending in a state, with the taxes collected from the state. This will always impact the results in favor or more dense states as military spending is often inverse to population density for obvious reasons.
The other failing is using the child tax credit as the basis for "Individual Dependency", aside from that being absurd on its face the idea then that you want to use people taking their legal tax credit passed by democrats to make a political point it just insanity
Again these "lol Red States need federal money" stories are partisan hack jobs that cherry pick data, and do not actually prove anything nor can they be used to make commentary on political policy, or anything.
People using them, reporting on them, or other wise engaging with them are either showing a lack of basic economic reasoning skills, or are partisan hacks looking for confirmation of their own person bias.
Which are you?
My guess is you just read the head lines, maybe the story but never actually look into the methodology or underlying goals of the people creating these "studies" (and I use that term loosely) because it confirms our personal bias you simply listen and believe
So the Red States should be okay with
The “Military Times” for what’s it’s worth, is not a left leaning site by any means
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2016/04/19/...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/base-closings-hot-potato-iss...
And it doesn’t matter as far as the child tax credit. It still means that the federal government is spending more in the state than it gets in. Which state would be better off if it didn’t have to pay federal tax for anything except the military -California or Mississippi?
The same argument as far as tax credits could be used for welfare benefits. They are just taking advantage of money that they are legally entitled to. Would conservatives agree with that argument?
How much of "rural America" is using Amtrak to get around? Their route map seems to indicate all their stations are in urban areas. It's not like they stop in every one-horse town.
As I understand it the ones really using it to get places are the Northeast Corridor, and the rest is mainly rail fans taking the land equivalent of a cruise ship.
I don't really have a horse in this game, but what's the playbook now for the scenario when the pension fund under-performs, and USPS is on the hook to make up the difference?
Tesla model Y uses roughly 0.3kwh per mile. Pge charges roughly 30 cent per kWh to residential customers. That’s roughly 2.7$/30 miles.
Yet the Tesla model y is a 60k car where-as a Honda CRV is roughly 30k. So we’re talking easily needing to drive 200k miles before break even. And that’s not including any depreciation, ev charger installs, higher insurance, higher car tax, etc.
the Crv has minimal ICE maintenance for its first 6ish years.
I do agree tha usps should use EVs for a large portion of its fleet. But it might pay to slowly ramp up usage to get a true sense to costs involved, and which technologies to use.
Looking at fuel, though, let’s consider a 30mi route. (Supposedly the average rural route is 45, unsure about cities.) Assuming it runs 6 days a week, that’s around 9k miles per year. At 8.6mpg, it’s around 1k gallons of gas per year. At the current average around $4, that’s $4000 per year on gas.
The current average electricity price for commercial and for transportation sectors is around $0.12/kWh according to EIA. It’s tricky to figure out what the kWh/mi is because it’s obviously a small truck, it’s going low speeds, and it’s able to use regen braking due to frequent stops. These factors make it hard to come up with a good number, but maybe let’s say 0.4kwh/mi (similar to an EV truck iirc.) At 9k miles, that’s 3600kwh. With the 12 cent energy cost, that’s only $430.
So the cost savings is around $3500/yr/vehicle, and gets even better if my miles per year calculation of 9000 is low. (Which is plausible.) and even better if the efficiency is better due to regen braking and low speeds. (Also plausible.)
Multiplied by 50k vehicles, it’s a cost savings of $175 million on fuel alone per year!
The USPS also stated in its release that many of their vehicles have been around for 30yrs. So I think it’s pretty plausible to say that a high mileage break-even cost is obtainable. And if we’re keeping these vehicles for decades and decades, it’s that much more important to go full EV today so that we aren’t running on inefficient, polluting, legacy tech in 30 years.
That brings fuel cost to 2500/year.
Your EV costs also need to include the cost of battery replacement, cost of charger install, and a manufacturer actually capable of delivering this volume of EVs.
After all said and done. I doubt EVs will be drastically cheaper on a TCO basis. Now if we take into consideration cost of pollution removal, then yes EVs are cheaper. It’d also be smart if the government to make the switch to encourage domestic EV manufacturing capabilities
I’ll concede that it’s hard to calculate and we can’t be certain. But it does seem like things are factored in favor of EVs in the long run. For example, if battery recycling, chargers, and those other costs associated with EVs continue decreasing, TCO looks even better in 10-15 years. Plus, committing to EVs helps push the industry forward and reduce costs, like you say.
Second, investing in EV improves EV adoption rate and support networks. Investing in poor mileage ICE at scale will likely inflate fuel prices for everyone else.
When estimating lifetime costs you are simply assuming that prices will stay at current levels when this investment itself could create unfavorable changes to the estimate.
First, there is no such thing as a global taxation authority, so whatever carbon you tax in the USA or Europe will simply be emitted by China and other developing countries, consequently boosting dirty economies and kneecapping cleaner economies (Actually making Climate Change worse). The second is that it further enriches the pockets of corrupt politicians and government institutions. The third is that it's a regressive tax that disproportionately hurts the poor and working class who can't afford expensive electric cars or energy saving equipment.
This argument has been used against every environmental regulation since the 70s. It wasn't a good argument then and it still isn't. Yes, obviously it would be better if we could get every country to agree on reducing pollution. That doesn't mean it's pointless to reduce emissions even if it's localized to only certain countries.
It does sound like that 8.6 number was the cherry picked, worst possible case number chosen for a dramatic headline.
These get 8.6 with AC on (which the current vehicles lack) or 14 with it off in those same USPS tests. I think it’s safe to say postal carriers will use the AC when it’s warm/hot out.
The new vehicles do much better on EPA tests, but of course those don’t mirror what the post office actually does.
It may be an improvement, but it’s nowhere near enough improvement for me. Maybe DeJoy would have a leg to stand on if they were getting 35. But they’re nowhere close.
It sounds wasteful but being stuck in a hot vehicle without A/C is a bit rough, mine was broken in summer of 2015 and I was too lazy to get it fixed, but it was pretty uncomfortable at times.
Though I don't mind it hot, was pretty sweaty.
This doesn't add up for me. A car doesn't spend 40% of its power (we are talking about 2-3 digit kWs) for AC. Even if its massive since its a truck and uses 10kW on peak, everything else would consume way more.
[0] or really, a defensive English Rule where a losing plaintiff covers the defendant's costs, but a losing defendant does not always have to cover a plaintiff's costs.
This lets the judges cap costs awards prospectively (as low as zero if necessary) if the alternative is that a meritorious case is likely to be dropped to avoid the risk of an unaffordable costs award.