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U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

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Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#31
post #6

I see Amazon's electric trucks in Berkeley quite often. I wonder how that fleet is working out for them. Of course the mail in my city is delivered primarily on foot.

I wish I could buy one of those vans. They're almost exactly what I want to make a camper from.

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#32
This will save a lot of money over time. Last time I checked in any detail, electricity prices per mile of transport per ton were about 25% that of fossil fuel prices per mile of transport per ton, and that was three years ago.

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.

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First paragraph of the article: > The service awarded contracts on Tuesday for 9,250 battery electric vehicles and for more than 14,000 charging stations .

Reading farther in the article: It also remains unclear where the vehicles and charging stations will be placed, as those details have yet to be finalized, the agency said. So, to answer the GP's question, "Where are they going to charge them once a post office has a few?" Nobody knows.

They're provisioning more chargers than vehicles. The answer seems fairly clear. For now, if you get three EVs at your local post office, I'd expect roughly three chargers installed.

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#34
post #7

I’ve been wondering what the most repairable vehicle might look like, and I guess the USPS already put a lot of brain power into that problem. I presume this is ugly because it’s both purpose built and highly repairable.

The design looks like it would have very good visibility. It's a huge problem with most vans and trucks where you have these huge blind spots in front.

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#35

Where are they going to charge them once a post office has a few? I thought I read somewhere that charging infrastructure is fine for a household but a fleet of 10+ EVs will need significantly more juice (technical term) and hardware to mitigate significant safety concerns.

I found this podcast episode about digital circuit breakers pretty interesting and is relevant to this:

https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-digital-circuit-breaker-and-why#...

I don't have any idea what USPS plans are here, though.

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#36

Where are they going to charge them once a post office has a few? I thought I read somewhere that charging infrastructure is fine for a household but a fleet of 10+ EVs will need significantly more juice (technical term) and hardware to mitigate significant safety concerns.

The Tesla Supercharger at my local Meijer is a little 10 foot by 10 foot fenced area for the electrical equipment. Seems fine.

Like there's the fenced area and then the charging stations next to the adjacent parking spots.

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#37

This will save a lot of money over time. Last time I checked in any detail, electricity prices per mile of transport per ton were about 25% that of fossil fuel prices per mile of transport per ton, and that was three years ago. 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.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#38

[flagged]

Are you assuming the grid situation won't change over the next years? And that the charging stations will use the same source as the city? Have you actually checked their plan for the charging stations and how will they be operated? When you do large projects like that, the reliability is considered and infrastructure is planned to account for it. Unless you're criticising a specific part of their actual plan, that's…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#39

[flagged]

Are you assuming the grid situation won't change over the next years? And that the charging stations will use the same source as the city? Have you actually checked their plan for the charging stations and how will they be operated? When you do large projects like that, the reliability is considered and infrastructure is planned to account for it. Unless you're criticising a specific part of their actual plan, that's…

No. Without capacity and grid improvements, it will fail. At this point, it’s at best a pipe dream.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-265846...

Re: U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs

#40

Where are they going to charge them once a post office has a few? I thought I read somewhere that charging infrastructure is fine for a household but a fleet of 10+ EVs will need significantly more juice (technical term) and hardware to mitigate significant safety concerns.

A standard service panel in a given building will struggle, but the “juice” is easily available from your standard neighborhood power lines.

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

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