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Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

techcrunch.com

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Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#11

Post by IMTDb »

Animats wrote: post #3

So how does this work? Right now, Amazon outsources delivery. Will they be building huge garages for their fleet? Or trying to get their drivers to pay for the vans, like Uber? And like they did in 2018, when they "bought" 20,000 Mercedes vans?[1] That deal: "Amazon will not own the vans but they will be handled by fleet management companies, who will then lease them to the delivery service owners." [1] https://multi…

Considering Amazon history I would not be surprised that this leads to "Amazon Delivery" which does exactly what you think. "Amazon Delivery" would slowly be responsible for an increasing portion of "Amazon Retail" parcels then generate money by opening to a wider audience.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#14

Post by blacksmith_tb »

danans wrote: post #8
devmunchies wrote: post #2

whats the carbon footprint of producing a single van?

The more correct question is: Liftime EV-Van Footprint = Production-Footprint(EV-Van) + Operational-Footprint(EV-Van, lifetime-miles-driven) vs Lifetime ICE-Van Footprint = Production-Footprint(ICE-Van) + Operational-Footprint(ICE-Van, lifetime-miles-driven) This calculation overwhelmingly favors the EV van, increasingly so as the carbon footprint of the operational electricity source itself reduces in footprint (i.e…

I think it's clear the lifecycle calculation favors the EV, but I don't think it's night and day[1]. Likely the emissions associated with the manufacture of the ICE and EV vans are similar (the batteries in the EV may even make it a little worse). But there's no doubt that the EV is a huge improvement in use, and switching a large portion of the trucks in our cities to EV would be giant win for air quality. As you say, electricity generation can continue to get greener as well, unlike gas production...

1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#15

Post by 8ytecoder »

IMTDb wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #3

So how does this work? Right now, Amazon outsources delivery. Will they be building huge garages for their fleet? Or trying to get their drivers to pay for the vans, like Uber? And like they did in 2018, when they "bought" 20,000 Mercedes vans?[1] That deal: "Amazon will not own the vans but they will be handled by fleet management companies, who will then lease them to the delivery service owners." [1] https://multi…

Considering Amazon history I would not be surprised that this leads to "Amazon Delivery" which does exactly what you think. "Amazon Delivery" would slowly be responsible for an increasing portion of "Amazon Retail" parcels then generate money by opening to a wider audience.

Amazon rents the delivery vans to the contracting companies even now. I read somewhere that these vans are specific models that skirt the regulation and qualify as personal vehicles.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#16

Post by jackhack »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

Wow, 100k is no small change. Hoping this accelerates the "tipping point" for electric vehicles - in my mind that's when the infrastructure for EVs (e.g. charging stations, or something in the future like battery swaps) actually makes it easier to own than a gas vehicle.

tipping point, indeed... and not in a good way:

let's take 100,000 vehicles with (I'm conservatively guessing) a 100 kWh battery each, that's a 100,000,000 kWh load each night! 100,000 Mega watt-hours is roughly the output of about 10 nuclear power plants in a 24H period.

Unless a lot of new capacity comes online, it could easily overwhelm the existing electrical grid's capacity.

Let's hope this is a gradual transition.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#17

Post by zelos »

devmunchies wrote: post #2

whats the carbon footprint of producing a single van?

For ICE vehicles production and disposal are about 15% of the total carbon footprint, the rest is fuel and servicing. Lat time I saw the figure the total impact of producing an EV was more, but the lifetime impact was about 30-40% of an ICE.

EVs really are a lot more efficient. When I worked it out for an EV charging from 'average' UK electricity, it was about 25% of my (already small and efficient) ICE car.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#18

Post by mulletbum »

8ytecoder wrote: post #15
IMTDb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Amazon history I would not be surprised that this leads to "Amazon Delivery" which does exactly what you think. "Amazon Delivery" would slowly be responsible for an increasing portion of "Amazon Retail" parcels then generate money by opening to a wider audience.

Amazon rents the delivery vans to the contracting companies even now. I read somewhere that these vans are specific models that skirt the regulation and qualify as personal vehicles.

My brother runs a repair company for these vans. From my understanding that is not true only because he has set guidelines with them which he must make sure the align with.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#19

Post by dyeje »

Animats wrote: post #3

So how does this work? Right now, Amazon outsources delivery. Will they be building huge garages for their fleet? Or trying to get their drivers to pay for the vans, like Uber? And like they did in 2018, when they "bought" 20,000 Mercedes vans?[1] That deal: "Amazon will not own the vans but they will be handled by fleet management companies, who will then lease them to the delivery service owners." [1] https://multi…

I believe Amazon is working towards building its own shipping empire [1] [2].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749163966/fedex-is-breaking-u... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/amazon-will-compete-with-fed...

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#20

Post by Rebelgecko »

qsymmachus wrote: post #7

As far as I'm concerned, this move is pure greenwashing until Amazon stops collaborating with oil and gas companies to extract fossil fuels faster. https://aws.amazon.com/oil-and-gas/

The sooner Amazon helps get all of the oil and gas out of the ground, the sooner we'll be forced to adopt electric cars.
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