Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 282 posts

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#111

Post by kevin_b_er »

cptskippy wrote: post #93
Robotbeat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. This is my experience. Bought a used Volt for $10k 3-4 years ago and probably have only visited a gas station about a dozen times since then. And there's significant East Coast charging infrastructure. I bought a used Leaf (first gen, I needed 5 seats for my wife's car since the first gen Volt only has 4) for $10k a year or two ago and have used Chademo charging several times without problem. The low range of th…

I've always wondered what long term issues one might encounter with a Volt. Can the gas in the tank go bad? I know modern fuel has a lot of preservatives. Has anyone experienced any issues with summer vs winter blends? You're potentially carrying out of season gas in your tank.

The gas tank is pressurized and vacuumed or something. Actually have to press a button to open the tank to put more in. If you don't use the gas engine for 6 weeks, it runs for 15 min to lubricate. If you don't keep the average gas age below 1 year, it will run the gas engine until the average age is below 1 year. And that logic is very much as a software developer would expect. It burns half the gas away and you refill it? Average age is now 6 months. In 6 months it'll do it all over again.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#112

Post by xxpor »

bdamm wrote: post #46
xxpor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These seem like they'd never work in the US. They aren't fast enough to go on the highway and their range is limited to 62 miles.

These trucks are solving the "last mile" delivery. Do you see many USPS delivery vans on the highway? That's the market.

All the time. That being said, it is Seattle so I-5 isn't usually moving at 50 mph anyway :)

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#113

Post by leesec »

gpm wrote: post #107
leesec wrote: post #103

Honestly this is a good move, I just have a quick question: Does anyone anywhere have video footage of a Rivian actually being driven? Like, not in a commercial, someone genuinely driving it. I just want to know if they are anywhere close to having a production vehicle. If they have a single production vehicle that does what they say, then OK they "just" have to figure out scaling up the manufacturing. If they don't…

I'm not sure making a single vehicle is harder to build than a large scale plant is... but I did find this via a quick google search: https://www.rivianforums.com/threads/preproduction-rivian-r1... I wouldn't assume it's not a submarine commercial though...

Yeah I've seen this, it also looks like a submarine commercial to me. What I'm more interested in is it's specs. Can it really charge as fast as they say? Does it really have that range and acceleration?

I've seen the shell of one in person, but it just seems to me if you actually could make an electric truck go 0-60 in 3 seconds and last 400 miles you would just make a video of it doing that instead of making a marketing video of putting a grill in its "gear tunnel".

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#114

Post by cameldrv »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #71
cameldrv wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because looking at pure economics, electrics were not competitive until recently.

The genius about the Tesla Roadster was it was competitive at the price level of very expensive toys.

Yes. Musk has been exceptional at figuring out markets to drive a tech up the experience curve that aren’t his ultimately desired market. Often it takes multiple companies to do that.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#115

Post by CodeWriter23 »

thesis wrote: post #72
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.

They already have this in some areas. Most of our deliveries are directly from Amazon trucks. I'm in a Houston suburb across the city (not in a 1 hour delivery area) from the distribution center. I just started noticing same day deliveries as well.

Well, they have contractors leasing Amazon-branded vans from a fleet management company. Like the top poster illustrated.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#116

Post by new_realist »

leesec wrote: post #113
gpm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure making a single vehicle is harder to build than a large scale plant is... but I did find this via a quick google search: https://www.rivianforums.com/threads/preproduction-rivian-r1... I wouldn't assume it's not a submarine commercial though...

Yeah I've seen this, it also looks like a submarine commercial to me. What I'm more interested in is it's specs. Can it really charge as fast as they say? Does it really have that range and acceleration? I've seen the shell of one in person, but it just seems to me if you actually could make an electric truck go 0-60 in 3 seconds and last 400 miles you would just make a video of it doing that instead of making a mark…

Rivian disguises their trucks as F-150s for real world testing, so good luck finding a video not made by them.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#117

Post by Dylan16807 »

paggle wrote: post #51

The idea of going "carbon neutral" is the biggest crock of shit. Literally sitting and breathing is not carbon neutral, all human activity spews out carbon and even in the craziest case if you plant a gazillion trees and bury them it only delays the carbon emissions by a few hundred years.

Breathing is carbon neutral if your food source is carbon neutral.

I'm glad you realize that carbon-negative activities can offset carbon-positive activities. I really don't understand why you immediately declare that it doesn't matter, though.

If the average person/company uses mostly-renewable supplies, and buries enough trees to offset the rest, then it doesn't 'only delay' carbon emissions, we can stop forever or even reduce the levels.

And you act like delaying bad effects for hundreds of years isn't a very good thing all by itself...

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#118

Post by djsumdog »

There is so much pollution that goes into making those vehicles, and all the waste from the batteries that need to be recycled every 8~10 years. This makes no sense from an environment perspective. You're better off buying older vans, that aren't so old they aren't inefficient, and just keep running those.

Plus you're talking about more growth and selling more products, which is just more waste.

We can't buy ourselves out of environmental disaster. We can't keep consuming. This feels like lipservices because for us to not destroy our planet, we actually need to buy fewer goods, that are more durable/fixable, even if they cost more. It's the opposite of what ever retailer big and small wants.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#119

Post by magduf »

delfinom wrote: post #99
cptskippy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered what long term issues one might encounter with a Volt. Can the gas in the tank go bad? I know modern fuel has a lot of preservatives. Has anyone experienced any issues with summer vs winter blends? You're potentially carrying out of season gas in your tank.

>I've always wondered what long term issues one might encounter with a Volt. It's a Chevy...so expect some pretty bad engineering defects with everything but the engine/drivetrain.

Yeah, it does seem like Chevys have some pretty robust engines/drivetrains, installed in some pretty lousy bodies.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#120

Post by magduf »

danhak wrote: post #69
fallous wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6kWh to refine a gallon of gasoline? That's not a bad conversion rate given that the energy in a gallon of gasoline is 33-34kWh.

The typical internal combustion engine is only ~30% efficient, getting only ~10 kWh of energy out of that gallon.

That's true, but it does ignore the waste heat, which in winter months is used to warm the passenger compartment. It's one thing EVs do have working against them, though it doesn't make up for the huge efficiency gain EVs have overall.
Post reply on HN