U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs
cbsnews.com
cbsnews.com
Compared to the old step through moped they had this new trike is a big improvement. It has shade and it carries far more mail. But it is bigger and I can see it may sometimes be less "agile" on badly maintained pavement and grass. The mopeds used to scoot around like zippy little dogs
So if you already have a van, it didn't matter if it's half loaded or full. But if you're getting new vehicles, 1 bike doing 3 trips may be way cheaper over time than 1 van.
What I would love to see is a ban on advertising in the mail. It all just ends in the bin. Such a waste to see those poor postal people sorting trash flyers for each house. Has to be soul crushing for them. And all I do is skim it and chuck it and get annoyed I had to sift through to find real mail…
Some sort of “opt in” code… that companies who sent bills and places I signed up to could use. But that would block unsolicited communications…
They even sell you mailing lists for your target audience. Cringe.
For example here in Brno, Czech Republic, the entry to the city center is nowadays quite restrictive for regular cars/vans - a lot of it is a pedestrian zone & its not really built for cars anyway, the street layout dating back to the middle ages in places or to the 19th century.
As a result, a lot of the deliveries happen via alternative means - for example when you order a pizza from the local Dominos, they will come with an electric scoter or on a bike. A lot of the food delivery happens via guys on small e-scooters (or even electric monowheels!) or just on foot/going by public transport. In other cases you can see a DHL cargo e-bike, etc. :)
I'd be curious if there is anything more iconic in recent history from brno that covers the ends of the earth than brno firearms.
[0] https://images.guns.com/prod/2021/06/21/60d0c845dabd0402af4f...
It will essentially become a whole new quarter, with housing, office/retail space and new schools. That's how big it was.
BTW, main focus now in Brno is high tech (a lot of electron microscopy), IT (Red Hat, Kiwi, YSOFT, Seznam, Netsuite, Avast, etc.) and lately also space (OHB, SAB Aerospace, etc.).
As far as I can tell their service is good & pizzas tasty. :)
Lately, I've started noticing 'UK' brand products coming to the US (Persil detergent, for example). Maybe many of these are Unilever brands being exported to more countries?
When people talking about "multinational corporations", this is what they mean. As a US person who's never traveled abroad, it might be jarring (or 'funny') at first to see familiar brands in a 'foreign' country. But we're ... a pretty global society now.
So you need to be going at the speed of 2km/h. Well, that's actually not that bad for a postal service. It's assuming absolute optimal conditions, but energy usage is for a typical electric car.
I doubt it would be financially net positive or carbon negative, but the idea is not as crazy as I thought assuming final delivery in medium density sunny urban areas.
At current prices, my sense is that solar panels on vehicles are marketing, not materially contributing to the energy budget. Nothing wrong with that but I wouldn't like to spend my feature money on the option.
If you space them off the roof by about an inch, like the old Landrover "Safari" roof, it'll make a hell of a difference.
True. For example, this Norwegian article from 2021 has two pictures in it.
https://fagbladet.no/nyheter/posten-stanser-kjop-av-fossile-...
The first picture at the top are mostly big electric cars. But scroll down a bit.
As shown in the second picture, the other electric cars that the Norwegian postal service use are much smaller. Almost like a quad bike with small wheels and a roof.
And large vehicles are dangerous too. But that's orthogonal.
The solution is better infrastructure for bikes. Separate bike lanes from cars and pedestrians, slow the cars down, and improve visibility at conflict points.
I don't think that's true, though. The alternative is not "endanger pedestrians", the alternative is "walk". A biker has a choice to not bike. And that's what I do; I walk when I'm in Boston, because I don't think urban biking is safe enough for me to make that choice.
Like, yes, better bike infrastructure is a good idea and separated bike lanes is something that I absolutely support, but biking is a choice, and right now a lot of people on e-bikes (not so much regular bikes, to be honest) make me feel unsafe to walk in places that they tend to congregate.
If we're all on board with punishing bicyclists (and, again, especially e-bikes), who get to act like vehicles when it suits them, from being on sidewalks and potentially endangering pedestrians, I think there's a great dialogue to have about that.
I don't much like cars, but cars aren't driving on the sidewalks where I am.
I imagine dedicated bike lanes would help with this, but at least where I am, there are dozens of cars for every bike, so I’m not sure how much sense it makes.
I don’t know that there’s all that much ‘hatred’, my road rides are by and large peaceful, but the cars that do seem upset by cyclists tend to be unwilling to respect bikes that are following the rules of the road; they don’t like bikes using a full lane and they will often break the rules of the road to pass a cyclist unreasonably quickly and unreasonably close.
One thing I’ve noticed about e-bikes is that they are increasing the number of cyclists considerably. I feel like this is very very good for cyclists, it’s making bikes much more present on the road, increasing the city’s interest in maintaining bike paths, normalizing bikes in traffic for powered vehicle drivers, etc.
There's lots of challenges with mail delivery depending on the area, density, business/residential ratio, and many other things. Those vehicles satisfy some situation. "the challenge" is not a thing.
Only later that I discovered I was the dumb one.
IDK how you can possibly economically send mail to places like foreign barely habited deep pacific islands for the same price as mailing to your neighbor.
China does that, for example - which is why you can get a $3 widget on AliExpress sent from China with free shipping.
However, right now congress doesn't act like they're doing that intentionally. That doesn't seem to be the policy they're aiming for.
Or a roving Packagebot(TM) ?
Packages are done by courier in a van or truck. Grocery deliveries are done by supermarket branded refrigerator trucks. Local fast food is done by the ubereats/menulog crowd.
A local automotive store will drop off parts by an employee in his car.
It sounds like americans get more packages delivered in one go, by the us postal office trucks?
120kg load capacity (270kg with trailer), 50kph max speed, 50-100km range. Curb weight is 315kg, total vehicle weight is 510kg.
For comparison, the USPS NGDV requirements were for a vehicle that could carry a loaded Kyburz DKP (minimum payload capacity of 680kg in 155 cubic ft) at twice the top speed (97kph) for longer operating ranges (110km minimum), all with an 18-29°C cabin temperature range at ambient temps of −34°-49C.
Calling BS on this. Anything more than a light drizzle (or any kind of wind + rain combo) and that driver is getting wet.
So you're agreeing with previous commenter that the description is incorrect?
It's more important to be able to get in and out easily.
You are quite right though, as soon as the rain starts, they're in full wet gear. Bright yellow, you can't miss them.
Suburban parcel delivery is specifically taken care of by Startrack, an Auspost subsidiary, usually in a trusty Toyota Hiace van.
https://kagi.com/proxy/Australia-Post-trials-three-wheeled.j...
I have a relative who did rider and driver training for learners. As well as the general public, they also ran Australia Post training courses which were large, regular, and took a lot of time.
- Most North American light rail systems use 750V electrification, Sound Transit used 1500V to reduce the number of substations.[1]
- The cars arbitrarily had to be assembled at Boeing in Everett "because of a 'Buy American' requirement written into the Kinkisharyo International contract ... Federal grant money is being used to help pay for the light-rail fleet, which means a percentage of the rail cars must be built in the U.S. and that final assembly must take place in Sound Transit's service district".[2]
Seattle's cars also used 70% low-floor access for ADA accessibility and included more bike racks, which isn't unique now but were both relatively novel at the time.[3]
1: https://web.archive.org/web/20150924022530/http://www.global...
2: https://web.archive.org/web/20070524112643/http://www.herald...
3: http://www.kinkisharyo.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/S...
Or is the idea to start with these where appropriate and develop other vehicles for more extreme climates?
Makes logistics cheaper if you only have one model to take care of, and since these are bespoke vehicles you'll also save on costs because the factory only has to build one variation.
https://www.postnl.nl/over-postnl/pers-nieuws/beeldmateriaal...
I'm in the city center of a large Belgian city and 99% of my deliveries from both BPost and PostNL are still the regular white panel vans, even though both have local sorting centers.
Perhaps the policy is different in Belgium?
But they also used bikes way back when they were still called PTT: https://www.transportfiets.net/2007/06/27/postfietsen-van-de... https://i.pinimg.com/474x/5c/00/9f/5c009f57703d05c367078d55e...
But on this search, I can even spot some Belgian mail deliverers on bicycles: https://www.google.com/search?q=postbode+op+fiets
And I've seen lots of discussions about whether it's wasteful to have things delivered to your door instead of buying it at a central shop, or that it's actually efficient to have a single van deliver all of that stuff instead of having everybody get in their own car to drive to the shop. I guess it depends on whether you need a car to go to the shop or not.
In any case, there's lots of experimentation with ever larger cargo bikes in order to try to keep city deliveries by bike. Still, we do get a lot of delivery vans in our street.
Packages are delivered by a PostNL guy driving a white van (or, more accurately, a subcontractor using their own rented non-PostNL branded van, but wearing a PostNL uniform)
You should really look at the differences in delivery areas, parcel sizes, the location of the post box on a property. They are all different for different countries.
But you're absolutely correct. It looks like it can carry less than a simple cargo bike. :+1:
They should really move all long-haul trucking to electric as well, at least for the main trunk lines, and for city-wide delivery. Remote rural routes will likely be the hardest to electrify.
Meanwhile California is paying other states to take electricity because they generate so much excess power during the duck curve (while simultaneously having rolling blackouts)
Solar will become vastly more valuable once enough electrical storage capacity goes online.
It’s also very likely California’s excess generation and storage will entirely flatten the generation curve for neighboring states.
I agree with the GP, we are on the precipice of an energy revolution. I look forward to see what we do with it!
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/10/9/20906839/map-pge-blackout-po...
Rural grid connection and maintenance costs are heavily subsidized by urban electricity users already. These subsidies should be applied for rather than being hidden so it's clear to everyone they exist.
And prices have been falling. Most plans around here are paying $0.10496. I'm on a time schedule and do most of my charging at $0.07688.
The price per kWh has been consistently falling. I think the GP is right, energy is changing.
https://cleanpoweralliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cl...
That's why they don't "realize it", because so far it has had ZERO positive impact on them.
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183700/us-average-retail...
2. https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/blogs/p/2022/03/06/when-wil...
75% of electricity costs in California come from the grid, not generation. Grid costs recently are up due to wildfire mitigation for power to rural communities.
Pumped hydro storage is another option. As is relying not so much on storage but rather expanding grid interconnection. Day/night solar cycles are less of a problem if you can buy and sell power across many time zones.
In shipping and logistics, time is money. Fuel can be dispensed in the US at a maximum of 10 gal/minute. Factor that against the largest charger you can find and see why the single cost difference doesn't matter yet.
> They should really move all long-haul trucking to electric as well
Reduced capacity from doing this requires additional vehicle time to haul the same amount of material. This isn't a single factor equation. Plus, over the road drivers sleep in their vehicles, and not always at truck stops. They're only allowed to drive for 10 hours, so it's not always as convenient as you might expect.
Consider the weight of 600 gallons of fuel vs. the reduced hauling capacity from using an electric truck and see why we're a ways away from this yet. Have no fear; though, the moment this is logistically favorable, they will switch.
Fortunately, for local deliveries like the post office, constant stop-and-go means that regen braking can really stretch the range of electric batteries.
The reassuring thing to me is that in just over 100 years we made the ICE so efficient. It’s a fundamentally wasteful design and we have taken it very, very far. With another 100 years of battery and electric motor development we will have equally impressive capabilities with the added trick of energy source agnosticism.
They don't need 0-60 in 4 seconds, so a single axle motor is probably all you need.
You don't need NMC chemistry for the range, you can just use LFP or sodium ion when it reaches mass production later this year hopefully.
You can even use a range extender ICE for the rural models like the BMW i3.
If the time wasted charging/refueling is super valuable you can fix this by provisioning a few more vehicles than there are drivers, or having hot swappable pre-charged batteries and provisioning a few more of those than there are vehicles. Then your recharging/refueling time drops down to a couple of minutes max because you're either swapping batteries out or hopping in a different truck.
If the basic running costs of these are really 25% of ICE vehicles then there's a lot of wiggle room for some extra "capital penalty" while still saving a tonne of money.
For in town trucks the math works out very well, and very quickly. Which explains why there are already multiple entrants into that market niche.
(That's assuming the infrastructure in the area can accommodate it. I expect any heavily-used truck charging stations are going to be located where the utility hookups are comparatively cheap and easy.)
Plenty of time to recharge vehicles.
If anything, local delivery vehicles are the best thing for EVs as they're inherently daytime use only.
I also wonder whether semis on certain well-defined long-haul routes (I-80 etc) could be partially automated, such that the driver could sleep in the back of the cab much of the time. Not sure if the technology is really there yet, though.
Sure, it's called a train.
You charge the mail trucks overnight, when they aren't being driven. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a postman out in the evening or nighttime. I also don't know about you, but I don't stand next to my car when I charge it at a rapid charger. (I stop where I can run an errand or use the bathroom.)
In comparison, it takes time to get gas. You have to go out of your way to get to the gas station, go up to the pump, pay for it, and then get back on your way. It always takes me 5-10 minutes to get gas.
So, time being money, what makes the most sense is to install a charger at every parking space that a mail truck occupies overnight, and getting rid of the trips to the gas station. The time it takes to plug the car in is negligible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_road
An EV semi with a relatively modest 100 mile range battery easily solves the last mile problem off highways while weighing the same as a traditional ICE engine + fuel.
No it is not.
We were doing this 100 years ago for inner city trolly’s. Trains travel 3x the speed of highway trucks, vastly higher power draw, and we solved that decades ago. There’s even been successful demos of actual highway trucks and power delivery. With modern battery technology we don’t even need a continuous system just enough to keep trucks topped off on highways so maintenance is easy and existing automated toll lanes even cover billing.
So, yes it really is trivial as shown by how cheap existing demo’s have been.
And to convert road vehicles to conduct off that highway? The words I would use to describe/implement that is "Absolute Taxpayer Aversion". Billions and billions in R&D with no guarantee of adoption and likely greater operating costs for 10s of reasons.(Maintenance, contract costs, accidents, teething.
Many counties, even liberal ones, in the US still have dirt roads. In western ireland it's about half the roads are dirt that I saw. If we can't figue out laying concrete at scale, how can we accomplish this "trivially"?
We had electric trollies 140 years ago and modern trains have surfaces in contact at 3x the speeds and much higher power draws. Trucks in comparison don’t need constant power, so you can maintain the line without interfering with traffic.
But you don’t need to trust me it’s a proven technology with the obvious revenue stream of charging for electricity.
PS: America has dirt roads because dirt roads work well when you have low traffic. Their old, cheap, and therefore proven technology just like electrified roads.
But point still stands, if state govt's struggle to repave arterial roads every few years to the standards of our taxes, do we think any national gov't would shoulder paying 10,0000 times that cost yearly to maintain bleeding edge technology across 100k highway miles?
In the 19th-20th century rail/trolley was used in the same way municipal buses are now. Great for absolutely defined schedules across short distances for local residents. Do you see that scaling up to highways though? Even if we used old school powered rail and cable technology to charge up highways for big rigs only, that would be such an unfathomable, enormous cost to implement and maintain. We can't maintain the rail network in this country, which is dwarfed in size by highways.
At scale this isn’t the kind of thing state or federal government needs to pay for out of pocket, it’s a revenue generating opportunity like total roads and can be financed as such.
It’s a classic chicken and egg problem where you need enough miles of electrified highways to convince people to buy new or modify old trucks. Realistically if hot swapping batteries or hydrogen was the cheaper alternative that’s the correct infrastructure to build.
Passenger rail largely failed because of the last mile problem, but here batteries solves the issue. A mile of electric highway can easily let you drive several miles of non electric roads.
Wow. Gas stations are everywhere, conveniently located, and always on route to some place or another.
The mental gymnastics employed, to try to make this seem arduous, does not make for a compelling argument.
So it's now actually more practical to have an EV in those places.
Having an electric vehicle is not useful if the only "fast" charging available to you as a consumer is a 240v hookup at your home (and you need to drive long distances regularly).
Gas stations also have large flat roofs that some are putting solar panels on top of.
Compared to maybe 10 seconds to plug in my car when I get to my garage.
I spend way more time recharging my ICE car than I do my EV.
For example, when I have to get off of a freeway in order to get gas, I usually have to navigate an intersection and might have to sit through a traffic light.
In places I used to live, getting gas meant turning left instead of going right on red. Then leaving the gas station meant sitting through another stop light or two.
You might not have to put up with this if you live somewhere rural, where you're not dealing with divided highways and traffic lights.
Otherwise, getting gas is a chore.
I just went out to buy gas for my snowblower and generator. The gas station was a mile away. It was 17 minutes round trip.
Granted, some of that time was taken up by opening up the gas can and adding stabilizer, but the point stands that getting gas is a chore.
Almost everybody consuming a "your local post office" volume of fuel has a tank and pump to dispense with on site.
That said, consumer shipping has enough regularity that it lends itself well to electrification and electrifying any given class of vehicle in that industry should pencil out a little sooner than the equivalent vehicle in general.
I think the thing that makes this logistically favorable is electrification of major highways. What I worry about is that this requires coordination between government agencies and car and truck manufacturers and it requires political will to make it happen and find the funding. We could start building it right now, or we could sit on our thumbs for the next twenty years.
(There are several different ways to electrify highways. My preference would be to use something like the system they're testing out in Sweden that uses power rails in slots embedded in the road surface. Cars/trucks have a device that swings down and makes contact. Overhead lines are cheaper, but aren't practical for cars to use. Induction charging is another option but it's much more expensive and power delivery isn't great if there's no physical connection.)
Recent price fluctuations due to the rise in oil prices have hit that sector really hard.
How many truckers will answer the question "would you like to save more in fuel cost per day than you currently earn per day?" with a "no?. Time loss for charging is maybe inconvenient but the price tag isn't that high for everyone.
Anyway, this stops being optional pretty soon after electrical trucks start undercutting transport prices because they simply have lower cost of course. But while there is still a choice, there are going to be smart truckers and broke truckers. They'll pay the difference out of their own pocket.
In any case, if the vehicle charges at night and has enough charge for the route, there is no time loss.
We're talking mail delivery here not trucking. They are not doing hundreds of miles per day. More like tens. With lots of drive a little, idle, drive a little, etc. driving. This has very poor fuel economy with an ice vehicle. An EV essentially has no energy cost when it is idling. At best you lose some energy to keep the AC and the radio going. Which isn't free with an ice vehicle either.
Mail and package deliveries are an ideal use case for EVs. Most commercial delivery companies have largely completed their move to EVs for this reason and are rolling out EVs as fast as they can get their hands on them. That debate is over and there never was much of a debate beyond "Would you like to cut cost? Yes!". Ancient history, the industry has moved on and the answer was conclusive. If you want to compete in that sector, EV is the only way. There's no case left for ice vehicles in that sector.
Trucking will follow.
Local delivery is a much clearer fit for electric, even in the short term. We see that here.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/9/18538030/germany-ehighway-...
Might also be beneficial on hillclimbs where instant battery capacity may be lacking.
If we imagine building EVs that are 1:1 replacements for ICE we see challenging hurdles but with even small changes in the status quo EVs suddenly become feasible on shorter timeframes.
Sounds like Norway or Switzerland would be your pilot project. Certainly Norway is all-in on electric. (They can afford to finance the cutting edge.)
EVs are great when in used in the right applications, but trying to make them work for everyone and everything is just going to tarnish the platform.
It's all an economic sum, really: when do the higher connection fees and increased demand pricing outweigh battery cost? We are already seeing grid-scale battery storage being used in practice, applying that to a more local use case might not be that unrealistic.
Besides, if the alternative is no charging station, you can probably charge significantly higher fees.
More battery = more minerals. Iron law of batteries.
It is a pipe dream to do it in 30 years. I don't even know what to call it doing so in seven. Dementia is probably the most appropriate word given who is pushing it.
If you think that sounds idiotic, that's politics for you. I wouldn't count on this never happening in the US, a lot of people support "climate action" without caring about the details or understanding anything about any of this on a technical level.
That's not relevant for current commercial delivery use cases.
Btw in many countries there are discounted rates for large electricity purchasers, like corporations. They pay less the more they use. So companies do have an incentive to go electric. There's just a lot more nuance. The charging times the other user mentioned are one thing. Parts of North America also get pretty cold in winter which drastically reduces the range of EVs. That's something many people who've never driven an EV don't know about for example. Will be interesting to see real world results. From the electric bus projects I've seen in some cities, they're far from as cheap in real life as cities thought they would be when they were presented the numbers on paper.
Today I'm paying all of 3c/kWh for electricity. Can't get much cheaper than that.
Also the EV+range thing is mostly negated by pre-heating the car while it's plugged in at home, warm battery = more range. Just like we need to do with ICE cars to make the engines even start in the winter.
As for winter, what you say may be good for people with a house and garage who are driving to work and back (but then range should not be an issue anyway). It doesn't work when you street park and it also doesn't really work when you're driving long distances or with a car that's mostly outside, like a delivery van.
The US is not as densely populated as Europe, so outside coastal areas much less land has a train station even within 200 miles radius.
Here is a map from 189X[0]
Auto supremacy was and still is a choice.
[0]https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/api/...
It's still not not as dense as UK, Germany, or Netherlands, and cannot be, outside areas like North-East. What makes sense around places like NYC, Chicago, or Seattle, may not work equally well in Nebraska. Building a road and running trucks on it is just more affordable.
Also, rail is optimized to have ridiculously high throughput at the expense of latency. Rail is great at hauling grain, huge hunks of steel, wood, etc, but is too slow for time-sensitive stuff like flowers or that birthday present you ordered at a last minute with express delivery.
This is why relatively long-haul trucking exist in the US, despite the presence of a large and busy rail system, to the best of my knowledge.
(Passenger rail vs cars is another kettle of fish entirely.)
Far far fewer than there used to be
> Building a road and running trucks on it is just more affordable.
Only if you discount negative externalities.
And you can't even know that for sure.
The cost of operating rail is easy to calculate. Too many independent agents to accurately price automobile GDP (for lack of a better word).
> is too slow for time-sensitive stuff
Not if you have more trains running more frequently. Its a case of induced demand[0]
0.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#:~:text=Induced....
Perishable food and parcels are commonly carried by rail, although there is still a lot by road.
Container trains in Britain can travel at 75mph on such tracks. That's faster than a truck is allowed to drive (60mph).
Checking my numbers, I found this [1] which is interesting:
> There are many other examples where people are utilising rail in new ways. For example - hot slab steel shipped from the furnace to arrive warm enough to be rolled into sheets.
Meanwhile, Europe has so much passenger rail that freight is really tricky to run. For example, there is a really busy freight corridor from Rotterdam to Germany with rail dedicated solely to freight, but the rest of The Netherlands is pretty much 100% passenger. Europe uses a lot more inland shipping instead.
If you look at the share of freight transported by rail as a function of the distance, in the US that curve goes smoothly upwards, as long distances play into the economic benefits of rail, whereas in Europe there's a sharp drop beyond 500-1000km or so. Meaning that international shipments in Europe largely switches to trucks.
Daimler Truck, one of the world’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturers, has unveiled its first heavy-duty, battery-electric truck – the Mercedes-Benz eActros LongHaul – with a new e-axle and a range of 500kms.
Electric truck maker Janus has debuted the first battery-powered prime mover in Australia and has plans to set up battery swap stations up and down the eastern seaboard within months. .. a first taste of the company’s plans to electrify long haul truck fleets using only batteries.
500 kms w/out having to stop is a long leg.
Being able to stop and swap out | replace batteries in the same time as a refueling | load | unload is indeed "a long haul technology" as it enables long haul trucking.
The speed limit for this vehicle will be either 80km/h or 100km/h, I'm not sure how they decide, but with some good logistics for a rapid charge part-way through that's not far off.
I have an EV now (id.4) and I'm of two minds. The acceleration is awesome but the inability to do a full road trip is (mildly) limiting and the suspension/drive quality is middling at best (partly because it's an SUV, partly because of the weight).
It caused me to almost have an accident when I was in stop and go traffic, specifically because of the lag. The person behind me did not expect me to start so slowly right after stopping (I had to wait for the engine shutoff and then to turn back on).
Also, s/anymore/any more/
I agree with the rest of your comment, but this seems disconnected from any reasonably modern automatic transmission vehicle I’ve seen. The torque converter is never really fully disengaged, so there isn’t lag from a stop to a creep, compared to in a manual transmission which is generally disengaged and covers up the start-stop lag during engagement.
[1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a229943...
• Idling for more than 10 seconds uses more fuel and emits more CO2 than engine restarting.
• Idling fuel usage varies from 0.2 to 0.5 gal/h for passenger vehicles across a range of sizes, and increased with idling speed.
• NOx and THC emissions from restarting are larger, but at least an order of magnitude lower than those from starting a cold engine.
• For short stops, it makes sense to turn the vehicle off in order to minimize fuel use and CO2 emissions. At least for the conditions evaluated in this work, the penalty in terms of criteria pollutant emissions
[1] https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/which_is_greener...
close to minimum wage, the last thing you want is for your vehicle to be driven away by a thief
People don’t appreciate the difference EVs make just by shifting the pollution burden of traffic away from the human environment.
I now have an EV as my family's main car, and it was driven in part by this (obviously obvious!) realisation.
Because of the delays due to rules (vehicle in park before unbuckle, seat belt buckled before moving, door shut), and the huge penalties for forgetting a rule even once, it is common for drivers to park and then run back and forth to the truck.
https://jalopnik.com/watch-an-amazon-driver-explain-the-comp...
Historically: It's by section of the route. Each route is supposed to have designated walking or riding sections.
That might have changed recently though.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/02/26/2018-03...
This need to make EVs loud sucks because I was really looking forward to a quieter environment. But no. Now I can tell you exactly when my neighbor two houses away is backing his Tesla into the garage, but not when his wife comes & goes in her Tahoe.
I've been working in my driveway on something, and had my wife pull up in our EV and I don't know the car is there until she's 4' away. Glad she knew I was there.
Noise pollution is a problem but the safety issues are more important.
Also if I’m backing up would you rather a muted noise or me constantly hitting my horn?
India has entered the chat. =)
Noise pollution has it's own consequences too, I'd like to see the numbers on people injured in the specific situation before declaring it an unambiguous good.
Cars are some of the worst offenders, of course. They always have been. But they've become a lot worse and apparently EVs are only going to continue that trend, apparently. I've noticed the utterly pointless "door open" chiming sound has started to appear on cars sold in Europe. Why do I and everyone around me need to know the car door is open when I've literally just opened it to enter the vehicle? Again, think about the cumulative effect of all these stupid pointless noises.
No. They are not. Nor have they been since at least the 1990s (probably longer)
There are standards for "drive-by noise" as measured at various speeds, distances and throttle positions and these standards have been in places and constantly been revised (to be more comprehensive) over time.
I'm unfamiliar with the specific FMVSS #s but I am familiar with the engineering shenanigans that have been implemented to meet them.
Ha, that's a good example. My neighbor has a new F150 and I can tell every time he gets out of it to run back in the house to get something he forgot. Ford's chimes have been a meme for many years, and the newest ones are the best yet. And by 'best' I mean somehow musical and pleasant but also terribly irritating.
I want a quieter environment too, but one with dramatically less cars.
I haven't figured out the styling around the front lights and grill. It doesn't seem as function-driven as the rest of the appearance, which I guess might be adding to the front looking odd.
Because it was for (non-military) government use, it naturally sucked. No air con (but you got a tiny fan!), a dinky heater that didn't really help, the chassis of a Chevy S-10, a 3-speed auto, and the engine from a Fiero. But the parts were easy to source and cheap.
If you look at USPS annual reports to congress they have ~27k motor vehicle accidents a year with a fleet of ~236k vehicles (~216k delivery).[1]
So possibly 10%+ of their vehicles are involved in accidents each year.
If we look at occupant fatality rates for vans (what usps currently use) they're one of the safest vehicle types.[2]
Meanwhile if we look at motorcycles the fatality rate is nearly 10 times higher.[3]
Bicyclist numbers look better at first glance but that's probably because the rate is by total population and not registered vehicles (because you don't have to register a bicycle).[4]
I know in my state (Louisiana), riding a bicycle on a road with other vehicles is considered notoriously unsafe.
Anecdotally I've had friends who reported incidents of people opening doors of moving vehicles to purposefully hit cyclists (and if you search american news media you'll see reports of intentional 'dooring').
[1] https://about.usps.com/what/financials/annual-reports/fy2022...
[2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8126...
[3] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
[4] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
You could also ignore vans entirely and look at compact cars (the worst of the passenger vehicles) and it's still a bad look for motorcycles.
I don't know that driver quality really matters here. If you're hit by an SUV or a truck (which is what most americans buy) when you're on a motorcycle it's going to be a worse time than if you're in a vehicle with airbags and crumple zones.
Also don't forget about all the young guys who are riding spiritedly everywhere. Even if you're good the inherent risk of that is high and given enough exposure...
AIUI, the US Post Office does everything in one.
Mostly because I saw one of them for the first time ever in Seattle about 3.5 months ago. At first it was just one, then I saw another one a week later. The frequency kept increasing to the point where I see multiple ones every time I go on a short grocery trip a few miles away. They expanded to the point where they are everywhere here now, and I doubt they would continue expanding it so aggressively if it wasn't working out.
If you use solar for recharging, best efforts (with a huge unfolding PV array) get you maybe 100 mile hops. That might be enough for some folks, but it's probably not going to be generally satisfactory (and, btw, it is a huge PV array that is required).
Or have a trailer with the generator and fuel tank, I always thought (if we can depart from the "ideological" part of EV vs. ICE) that it could be a "standard" range extender for any kind of electric car, a sort of hybrid on demand, you normally drive (short range) an EV and if you have to do a longer trip you rent the trailer with the generator set.
> The service awarded contracts on Tuesday for 9,250 battery electric vehicles and for more than 14,000 charging stations.
It also remains unclear where the vehicles and charging
stations will be placed, as those details have yet to
be finalized, the agency said.
Me. 1 Mar. 2023. Hacker News, comment #34991363.
> They're provisioning more chargers than vehicles.
> The U.S. Postal Service's plans for a nationwide fleet of electric vehicles are getting closer to being realized. The service awarded contracts on Tuesday for 9,250 battery electric vehicles and for more than 14,000 charging stations.
As such, a contract has also been awarded for the agency to acquire 9,250
commercial-off-the-shelf internal combustion engine vehicles "to fill the
urgent need for vehicles." In December, the agency said that 21,000 COTS
vehicles will be purchased and are "expected to be battery electric,"
but said that depends "on market availability and operational feasibility."Outside of the post offices, where will USPS set up additional chargers? That is the unknown right now, if they actually do set up any outside of post offices.
There is significant doubt they would set up chargers outside of post offices, considering they acquired 14k charging stations and have 30k+ offices in service.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/usps-mail-delivery-trucks-lo...
[1] https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3879040-usps-t...
When looking where the chargers will go, the issue is that the cars aren't necessarily going to be purchased and delivered, either. So, it isn't clear where the chargers will go, if anywhere. Today, there is a small rollout of chargers planned, but that isn't enough to say that many post offices will have chargers.
For those reasons, "the parking lot" isn't a feasible answer compared to specifying which post offices or other information. And, the USPS has said they don't know where the chargers will go, possibly a location centralized between several post offices. After all the question was asked by that poster, so it's best to presume that actual information was desired not flippant answers like are in this thread.
Many post offices have full lots today, so purchasing more vehicles and retiring some will surely mean there will be even less room for chargers in the parking lot.
However, it is highly likely that, for the local offices and route which they find to be suitable they will build chargers in the lots, because 1) others in this space have already done this and it works, and 2) the place where the vehicles are currently parked is the place where it makes the most sense to park the vehicles, logistically.
https://www.rivianownersforum.com/attachments/amazon-chargin...
There is no "significant safety concern" or special hardware needed for additional chargers.
https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-digital-circuit-breaker-and-why#...
I don't have any idea what USPS plans are here, though.
Like there's the fenced area and then the charging stations next to the adjacent parking spots.
So at the local level they will have to build some new infrastructure for the last few yards, but this isn’t really a big issue
Some searching brings up 24 miles a day as the average for a postal route. Even if you round up to 50 miles a day per vehicles, a 400A service will do more than 50 vehicles at night. It's not ideal for trucks between facilities, sure. But for neighborhood last mile delivery you wouldn't have that many vehicles per facility, or distance traveled, making it pretty ideal to start rolling out electric vehicles there.
As a practical matter, most routes are not 70 miles, they're more like 25. And the truck probably gets better efficiency than 800 Wh/mi.
At least in SoCal they (almost?) always leave the door completely open and they wear shorts, clearly because they don't have A/C.
1. They may not be typical chargers. Connecting multiple vehicles to the same source which can distribute the power based on time and need may be possible in this case.
2. If these are purpose built, we don't know if charging the vehicles even applies. Totally made up idea: batteries easy to replace get shipped off for charging off-site and cycled daily. (+ single on-site charger for emergencies)
3. You're not charging 10 EVs immediately - you have 10 EVs which need power at the beginning of the next business day.
I do think swapping batteries is unlikely, however. It adds a lot of complexity, and if the typical route is only 25 miles long then a battery swap is overkill.
Installing chargers at the depot is what many other large business with electric delivery vans has done. Some smaller businesses have their staff charge the vehicles at home, and pay them for the electric.
> The plan drew heavy criticism and spawned a lawsuit from 16 states aiming to block the purchase.
> Since then, the USPS has slowly raised the number of EVs it plans to order. In July 2022, it estimated that at least 40 percent of its new purchases would be electric, and in December, it said it was exploring the “feasibility of achieving 100% electrification.” The agency says that it expects to invest around $9.6 billion into the initiative and expects pretty much every vehicle it buys after 2026 to be electric.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/1/23620658/usps-ford-transit...
Using the boring but practical electric Ford Transit van makes sense. Those things are going to take over the local commercial van market. They're already in mass production.
The Airline Industry: In the early days of American aviation, air transportation was unproven and not financially viable, until the USPS built the necessary infrastructure and gave contracts to airlines to allow them financial feasibility… starting in 1918! [1]
Machine Learning: In 1989 Yann LeCun wrote his seminal paper “Backpropagation Applied to Handwritten ZIP Code Recognition”, which used the USPS’s data set and has today become the hello world of machine learning tasks. More importantly this is the first commercial or industrial application of machine learning. [2]
Netflix: Before Streaming became a thing, Netflix was shipping DVDs via the USPS. The Postal Service adapted its processes and equipment to make this financially feasible, supporting Netflix through its transition to streaming. [3]
Amazon: Early Amazon was only a book vendor, the USPS offered special rates for books that made it possible for Bezos to be profitable from his garage … in 1994, thus birthing the behemoth it is today. [4]
Chickens: okay, not really. But the USPS ships millions of pounds of live chickens and other animals each year! [5]
[1] https://www.history.com/news/us-aviation-airmail-passenger-f...
[2] http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/publis/pdf/lecun-89e.pdf
[3] https://www.zdnet.com/article/u-s-postal-service-to-netflix-...
[4] https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Media-Mail-Book-Rate
Edit: Name dropping over here https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/03/31134628/us-postal-servi...
https://carnewschina.com/2022/11/01/wuling-sells-an-ev-truck...
In this case, the internal combustion engine vehicles will be gas-powered and made by Fiat Chrysler Automobile, a spokesperson for USPS told CBS News. They added that, unlike older USPS vehicles, these will "feature air conditioning and advanced safety technology and are more suited to modern day operational requirements."
Oh great. Living in a rural area this phrasing immediately brings to mind certain people.
"Heer in the hills we only got OIL cars, see. And ourn roads got RUTS would swollow your 'lectric. Nope, 'lectric won't get you up there honey, ain't feesible atall. WEEE HEEE HEEE HEE"
No AC, no airbags, no ABS breaks… how can anyone insure this or have it pass OSHA regulations?
Looks like something out of a kids movie though, which is kinda neat actually.
In addition to crumple zone, that's where the wheels and steering gear is. And it's a handy place to stuff things like air conditioning and such. The alternative would be a much higher cab floor, which isn't an ideal choice for a mailman who probably gets in and out quite regularly.
Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Also, I suspect the snout isn't really that huge, but the vertical windshield exaggerates that look.
As these charge overnight, I'm guessing USPS could easily program them to charge when the electricity is the cheapest (i.e. overproduced), or skip charges when the remaining range is enough and electricity expensive.
That said, my local mail delivery is made via 4 wheel drive down an often running creek bed. Lol I think we are pretty far away from fully get electric…
Surely we as a species still appreciate things looking _good_ as part of an objective goal?
I dunno, they make me smile because they are so ugly/goofy.
(wasn't there some blurb about how the postal workers weren't too happy with that design? i mean, practical reasons, not just 'i don't like it')
I receive easily 500 lb of physical parcels a year, stuff like dog food, cat litter, coffee, etc.
Also, banning physical paper mail implies that you have to have an official email address for official documents like taxes.
Or have a government online service where you receive such documents (as done here in Finland, though it is entirely optional).
Will they end up in the landifll?
Translation:
NO unaddressed printed advertising material, door-to-door news papers NO
These stickers are reasonably well respected here, and violating them leads to a barrage of complaints to the advertising company. Lots of people have them.
Well, that isn't going to work. Batteries don't do well in the cold, like in Alaska.
Mail in most Alaskan towns comes by plane. In Anchorage and Fairbanks, eTransits will be more than enough.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/electric-vehicle-ownershi...
https://theramreview.com/the-true-cost-of-electric-vehicles/
"While the benefits of electric vehicles certainly are appealing, there are unintended consequences not openly being discussed. Among these are “indirect pollution,” and “natural resources availability” related to the wiring, traction motors, and batteries that are the primary drivers of electric-drive vehicles.
Let’s begin with “indirect pollution” resulting from mining and processing of materials. Battery-pack materials include aluminum, copper, steel, lithium, glass fibers, carbon fibers, and polymers. Electric motor materials include aluminum, cobalt, copper, iron, silicon-steel, manganese, graphite, lithium, and a variety of rare-earth minerals (dysprosium, neodymium, niobium, terbium and praseodymium).
For example, the amount of copper required for electric-drive vehicles is staggering compared to that for fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. Conventional cars use 18 to 49 pounds of copper, while hybrid vehicles (HEVs) use 85 pounds. But it doesn’t end there. PHEVs use 132 pounds of copper, while EVs require over 180 pounds. Electric buses and hybrid electric buses contain 196 and 814 pounds of copper, respectively. And there’s a real cost for that.
Copper, much like other primary metals, begins with mining the metal bearing ore. Beyond mining, the process steps for producing copper include transportation, concentration, roasting, smelting, converting, and refining before it is ever formed into bus bars, terminals, connectors, and wiring. Those processes require massive amounts of electricity and result in large amounts of impurities and pollutants that must be contained and disposed of. These include sulfur, antimony, arsenic, lead, sulfur dioxide (SO2), sulfuric acid, iron oxide, and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and radium. The waste streams include solution ponds, smelter slag, and solid waste.
Note, too, that “natural resources availability” of many of the metals required for electric vehicles is in environmentally sensitive regions, countries with unstable or economically hostile governments, and globally- constrained supply chains. Let’s take a look at where massive amounts of just three of those required minerals are found: cobalt, rare earth, and copper.
♦ Cobalt: The Democratic Republic of Congo possesses 47% of the global reserve. China processes the largest amount of cobalt for the world market. New cobalt reserves are being exploited. Deep-sea mining of metal nodules mixed in the sediment is one of the most promising sources of cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese, especially among the Pacific Islands. Waste rock and sediment is re-deposited on the sea floor destroying deep sea marine life.
♦ Rare-Earth Minerals: China possesses 95% of the global rare-earth mineral reserves. The supply chain is constrained by geo-political forces and a volatile price history. Until the 1980s, the U.S. was one of the world’s largest producers of rare-earth minerals. Northeast Wyoming, home to one of the highest-grade rare-earth deposits in North America, is currently under development. However, China has increased production by more than 500% since 1990 due to that country’s substantial deposits and cheap labor. As China began to produce more high-tech products requiring rare-earth elements, the mining intensified. That mining, in turn, uses a mix of water and chemicals, which causes extensive water and soil pollution. China’s local and federal authorities have reportedly shut down illegal and small-scale rare-earth mining operations.
♦ Copper: Domestically, copper is mined in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Montana, and Michigan. Internationally, Chile, though, possesses over 30% of the global copper reserves."
----
And lastly: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38043667/study-electric-c...
Why start off with 30% more more charging stations than EVs?
So at least here, it would be advantageous to get connected as soon as possible.
The electric postal type vans I have seen look almost identical to the gasoline version. [1]
[1] https://www.man.eu/ch/de/transporter/man-tge/elektroantrieb/...
What they've purchased are the "Ford E-Transit Battery Electric Vehicle", which AFAICT look pretty much identical to the standard Ford Transit vans that are ubiquitous all over the US.
Significantly smaller. They are designed to be stopped on small oneway roads while still leaving enough room for a full sized vehicle to pass.
It’s also somewhat reminiscent of the existing fleet of last-mile carrier trucks:
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/usps-mail-delivery-truck-bac...
Some places are mandating designs along these lines for pedestrian safety.
I can only hope their lack of profit motivation will make them stop taking money from bulk mailers.
We tried subsidizing rural broadband for last 3 decades with 100s of billions of dollars with little to show for it , Starlink on the other hand is able to solve it with purely commercial enterprise not withstanding the small rural subsidy they got.
Maybe it is better for the market to decide ? If the market does not value the important things rural economy produces and is absolutely important then they either start valuing them correctly and pay for it or we can stop producing them ?
Government subsidy always creates inefficiencies and is slow to adapt to change . It is acceptable trade off in some areas like defense, police, healthcare, insurance, or foundational research where for profit enterprise is not viable but package delivery is hardly one of them.
What is the fair value? We want them doing whatever they're doing, but we don't want to face the actual cost. So we subsidize the services they need/want, so that they will be willing/able to live there and do those things.
> We tried subsidizing rural broadband for last 3 decades with 100s of billions of dollars with little to show for it
It connected my village and the rural corridors on either side of Santa Fe.
> Starlink on the other hand is able to solve it with purely commercial enterprise not withstanding the small rural subsidy they got.
Everyone I know out here who uses Starlink says it is getting visibly worse as more people use it.
> If the market does not value the important things rural economy produces and is absolutely important then they either start valuing them correctly and pay for it or we can stop producing them
I thought COVID made it very clear that the market doesn't price based on the level of actual need, but rather on the desires of those with the most control over resources.
> It is acceptable trade off in some areas like defense, police, healthcare, insurance, or foundational research where for profit enterprise is not viable but package delivery is hardly one of them.
Clearly, you don't live in a rural area with a substantial drive to local retail. Living without any effective policing is a tradeoff many of us are willing to make, but a return to the pre-Sears days for shopping will empty the hinterlands out in an instant.
There are arguments you could make in favor of this outcome, but then be honest and say that's the outcome you're aiming for.
It is better for the market to decide. Otherwise you will have some small percentage of people who have excellent reasons why their particular area should receive a disproportionate amount of money.
Naw, clearly the world is a metropolis measured in tens of square miles large with fiber internet, supermarkets that spawn stuff on shelves, and electricity dyed green.
Instead of of subsidizing, we would merely pay for what we consume isn’t that a better deal ? Both you and the farmer get to choose how the money is being spent ?
Farming is heavily subsidized worldwide. If the US stopped subsidizing farming unilaterally, it would decimate (for the pedants yes I know decimate means decline by 10%) US farming.
Are you saying that we should depend on other countries for food? You think our chip dependency leaves us vulnerable…
The subsidies we are providing has encouraged farming in desserts and is destroying precious water we have . Is depending on another nation so bad compared to that ?
Besides There are other ways to protect industry without subsidies- put a tariff on imports for example .
A tariff would not protect exports however just local consumption, farming subsidies are designed to dump are unsustainably grown produce in global markets not protect the local Industry.
https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm
Though your farmers are digital, there is no API for getting live bees.
If your objective is to lessen your bulk mail, the FTC recommends this service. I've done it and my bulk mail is significantly less. It takes a few months to notice a difference.
Also that doesn't even include all the cases where a relative helped the person fill out the ballot.
I guess my point is, it's very hard to change how voting works here.