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

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

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 503 posts

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

#91

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

psychlops wrote: post #87
Clubber wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of remote areas that only the USPS will deliver to because they aren't profit motivated.

The nation should subsidize package delivery to remote locations? I'm sure there is a good reason why, but I can't think of an example. I can only hope their lack of profit motivation will make them stop taking money from bulk mailers.

Because there are people doing things out there that are valuable to us, but we don't pay them enough to do those things that they could dream of paying the full cost of mail delivery.

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

#92

Post by gwbas1c »

akira2501 wrote: post #61
photochemsyn wrote: post #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.

> electricity prices per mile of transport per ton were about 25% that of fossil fuel prices per mile of transport per ton 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 cap…

> 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.

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.

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

#93

Post by p1necone »

mulmen wrote: post #77
p1necone wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. 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…

Over-provisioning vehicles has a capital penalty and requires staging areas that don’t already exist.

All of this has a capital penalty and requires stuff that doesn't exist yet. We're discussing exactly what stuff might be worth said capital penalty.

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.

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

#94

Post by m4rtink »

viraptor wrote: post #13

For comparison, Australia Post went with mostly 3-wheel electric bikes for local deliveries (3100 out of 4100 EVs in the fleet mid 2022). https://auspost.com.au/our-stories/inspiring-stories/sustain... there's a photo in the link. The low noise compared to the previous powered bikes is really nice.

Yeah - while it seems easy/logical to just swap a normal delivery vehicle for an electric version of it, you don't really have to do that & electric vehicles do come in many more shapes and sizes due to the might higher flexibility and scalability of the electric power system.

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. :)

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

#95

Post by IncRnd »

s0sa wrote: post #81
IncRnd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredibly lazy to say my criticism was "just lazy" since I didn't post criticism but answered a question about the contents of the article.

No, you made an irrelevant and dismissive remark under the “guise” of an answer. Lazy.

No, the existence and locations of these chargers is not set. They may not even get purchased. The current planned rollout is for 75 locations. The absolute truth to "where these will get placed" is nobody yet knows. Nobody knows where, because nobody knows where the vehicles will get placed.

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

#96

Post by mulmen »

ulfw wrote: post #73
akira2501 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> electricity prices per mile of transport per ton were about 25% that of fossil fuel prices per mile of transport per ton 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 cap…

I've never seen mail being delivered at night, in any country I lived in. Plenty of time to recharge vehicles. If anything, local delivery vehicles are the best thing for EVs as they're inherently daytime use only.

Where I live I definitely see mail delivery after dark but not over night.

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

#97

Post by rootusrootus »

kube-system wrote: post #66
justanother wrote: post #48

Most American humans and pets know the distinctive sound of an LLV trolling around the block delivering the mail. EVs are Ninja-like by comparison. I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing, but it's gonna be a different world.

EVs are kind of loud these days due to FMVSS No. 141 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/02/26/2018-03...

As the owner of two EVs, with neighbors that have various EVs and hybrids, I am actually kinda miffed at the new regulations. For a typical appliance car like a Corolla, Camry, or similar, the engine is all but inaudible unless the car is stationary. Once it is past walking speed tires quickly become what you hear.

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.

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

#98

Post by scarface74 »

psychlops wrote: post #87
Clubber wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of remote areas that only the USPS will deliver to because they aren't profit motivated.

The nation should subsidize package delivery to remote locations? I'm sure there is a good reason why, but I can't think of an example. I can only hope their lack of profit motivation will make them stop taking money from bulk mailers.

Yeah, who needs farmers. Food is so overrated.

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

#100

Post by viraptor »

rootusrootus wrote: post #86
viraptor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a few assumptions here that apply to households, but not purpose built business vehicles. 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 o…

These are good points. We already have residential chargers which coordinate to share power, so it's very likely that any business-grade charger will have similar capabilities. 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.

True about swapping - it was a totally made up idea. The point was that at some scale you get to consider things you can't apply to homes or even parking lots.
Post reply on HN