301–310 of 503 posts
Well that's great, I'll be getting almost 100% junk mail via EV now.
Is paper junk mail still that much of a problem? I hardly receive any (but I've got one of those stickers saying I don't want it), and assumed it had died due to the rise of online advertising.
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Why only for cities? There's quite a few of them in the local small towns which were previously handled on pushbikes and small motor bikes. 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.
I think what parent is saying is that in the US a disproportionate percentage of USPS budget is spent delivering mail to extremely rural areas (far from both cities and small towns).
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I think in the states the cost in lives might be significant if we did that. 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…
It sounds like there could be selection bias in those numbers, so I’m not sure that can be extrapolated. I’d expect that the percentage of vans driven by professional drivers is relatively high, compared to motorcycles.
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.
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.
This ugly look will grow on folks who will nostalgically bemoan going away of these "ugly but trusty/distinctive/unique character/all familiar/ " trucks when they are replaced with a new design 10 years down the line.
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It doesn't introduce lag. At least not in a manual car. By the time you've pressed the clutch down and selected a gear the engine will be ready. You can completely forget about it. If you're talking about automatics then maybe you should get a manual if you are so concerned about lag. Engine start/stop might just be your first "don't like it because it's different" thing.
A manual has the same lag, except you're coving it up by adding clutch lag instead.
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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.…
People were dying because they couldn't hear the cars coming. Elderly, children, hard of hearing, people just looking at their phones or otherwise visually distracted. Noise pollution is a problem but the safety issues are more important.
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Most gas delivery vehicles don't idle these days. But maybe the starter motor requires more maintenance.
Doesn't every gas motor start spew out some uncombusted fuel ?
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I don't like that feature very much since it basically introduces a lag.
It doesn't introduce lag. At least not in a manual car. By the time you've pressed the clutch down and selected a gear the engine will be ready. You can completely forget about it. If you're talking about automatics then maybe you should get a manual if you are so concerned about lag. Engine start/stop might just be your first "don't like it because it's different" thing.
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.
I wonder what will happen to the 9250 non-EVs they will replace. Will they end up in the landifll?
Recycle them, probably. Or whatever they normally do with their vehicles when they're taken out of use for other reasons. It's not like those things live forever.