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Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

nytimes.com

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Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#111

Post by klik99 »

Oarch wrote: post #90
klik99 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably in the minority, but I actually like the look of them. I find so many modern car designs indistinguishable from each other. Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform.

Like wet putty https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/why-do-new-cars-look-lik...

Good article, though I do like some matte paints and some of the dulled color looks. The problem for me is not that these aren't good paint choices by themselves, but how uniformly dull every car is. Most cars come in 3-4 shades of grey or a dull red, if there is color more often than not it's that wet putty look. I legit felt sad a couple of times looking at a big parking lot and the total lack of color. If people had a variety of color cars, then a few of those wet putty dulled out versions would be part of that variety.

There's almost certainly strong market and logistical reasons for this trend, and I bet some HN reader knows why to an unreasonable detail (I'd be interested to hear it!), but it still bums me out.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#113

Post by ggreer »

reaperducer wrote: post #98
ggreer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that a much more capable vehicle could be purchased for a similar price. Depending on the use case, of course other commercial vehicles would make more sense. The smaller versions of the Ford Transit are a popular option among non-US postal services. And if US Postal Service was willing to buy foreign vehicles, they could have even smaller and cheaper options. (Though they'd have to deal with EPA and NHT…

if US Postal Service was willing to buy foreign vehicles, It's not. Offshoring critical infrastructure is always a bad idea. they'd have to deal with EPA and NHTSA rules Possibly not. They don't even have license plates, as the Postal Service outranks state governments.

The NGDV's gross vehicle weight rating is 8,501lbs so that it is classified by the EPA as a heavy-duty truck. If the rating were a pound less, it would be classified as a light-duty truck and have much stricter emissions standards.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#114

Post by klik99 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #60
klik99 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably in the minority, but I actually like the look of them. I find so many modern car designs indistinguishable from each other. Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform.

> Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform. The issue is fuel efficiency. Modern cars are all built to be as aerodynamic and fuel efficient as possible, and the constraints are virtually the same, so the designs are very similar as well. However, these mail trucks don't travel 85 miles an hour, most of them will be on average less than 25 mp/h or less, wh…

I don't fully buy this - if you optimized for aerodynamics and safety you'd get cars so far outside the aesthetic it would be ridiculed. No-one is making fun of the new USPS trucks for lack of fuel efficiency, they're saying it looks like a platypus. I can see a weaker version of what you're saying, that the intersection between the aesthetics a mass car market would accept and an acceptable fuel efficiency/safety yields a very narrow design space.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#115

Post by potato3732842 »

8ytecoder wrote: post #108
garciansmith wrote: post #7

I've read so much knocking their appearance, which is so confusing to me. It's ultimately function over form in this case; who cares if you don't like how it looks? I can only dream that the visibility and safety of having features like such a low hood and large bumpers would be incorporated into other vehicles (i.e., every SUV ever).

Subarus use a boxer engine that drastically increases the visibility. I have a short torso with long legs and finding a car where I felt comfortable with visibility was a priority for me. I settled on the Subaru Impreza 10 years ago. Still has the best visibility of all the cars I’ve driven. I’d expect EVs to also have better visibility - may be eventually - since they can drop the height of the hood as well.

They're just as tall as anything these days.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#116

Post by shiroiushi »

klik99 wrote: post #111
Oarch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like wet putty https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/why-do-new-cars-look-lik...

Good article, though I do like some matte paints and some of the dulled color looks. The problem for me is not that these aren't good paint choices by themselves, but how uniformly dull every car is. Most cars come in 3-4 shades of grey or a dull red, if there is color more often than not it's that wet putty look. I legit felt sad a couple of times looking at a big parking lot and the total lack of color. If people h…

I think there's two parts:

1) A lot of car buyers worry about resale value. For the same reason a house with a purple and pink paint scheme won't sell at top price, a car with strong colors won't either. You might like seeing cars in a variety of colors like bright orange, bright green, etc., but those colors will absolutely turn away a significant fraction of the potential buyers, thus lowering resale value. If you could just press a button inside the car to change its color, it wouldn't be this way, but as it is, repainting a car is prohibitively expensive.

2) Just look at the way people dress these days. Boring colors are in, bright and bold colors are out and generally associated with the 1960s. We're in a very bad time now as far as color palettes and styles go.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#117

Post by littlekey »

>Ykeyler Barnes, a letter carrier in Athens, said when she first got her new electric mail truck, she thought it wasn’t working when she pushed the button to start it. So she called a mechanic to check it out. “He said, ‘It starts — you just can’t hear it because it’s electric,’” Ms. Barnes said. “I thought that was so funny. I came home and told my family and we got a good laugh out of it.”

My favorite part of this, so wholesome. It really is shocking to hear the difference when you've been driving/hearing gas vehicles your whole life.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#118

Post by folmar »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #61
hex4def6 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"While the all-aluminum body of the LLV has resisted corrosion exceptionally well over the years, the main powertrain components have been replaced multiple times and now must be sourced through aftermarket manufacturing. This has significantly increased repair costs while reducing performance and reliability. In fact, the Postal Service had to contract an alternative supplier to reverse engineer and manufacture the…

> manufacture the chassis frame Ship of Theseus notwithstanding, at that point, isn't it a new car if you're replacing the chassis?

Some manufacturers have a way of "officially" replacing the chassis, as in getting the chassis as a replacement part and procedure to replace it.

For example see BMW part number 51 71 7 409 410, chassis for F16 https://www.online-teile.com/bmw-ersatzteile/51717409410_Bod...

The law might look this or other way depending on where you are.

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#119

Post by XorNot »

klik99 wrote: post #114
mschuster91 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform. The issue is fuel efficiency. Modern cars are all built to be as aerodynamic and fuel efficient as possible, and the constraints are virtually the same, so the designs are very similar as well. However, these mail trucks don't travel 85 miles an hour, most of them will be on average less than 25 mp/h or less, wh…

I don't fully buy this - if you optimized for aerodynamics and safety you'd get cars so far outside the aesthetic it would be ridiculed. No-one is making fun of the new USPS trucks for lack of fuel efficiency, they're saying it looks like a platypus. I can see a weaker version of what you're saying, that the intersection between the aesthetics a mass car market would accept and an acceptable fuel efficiency/safety yi…

Not really sure what you think would change if you did this?

Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

#120

Post by toast0 »

ggreer wrote: post #86
chomp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How in the world is a mail carrier going to deliver mail in a huge esprinter, you going to have them open their door and climb out at every mailbox?

My point was that a much more capable vehicle could be purchased for a similar price. Depending on the use case, of course other commercial vehicles would make more sense. The smaller versions of the Ford Transit are a popular option among non-US postal services. And if US Postal Service was willing to buy foreign vehicles, they could have even smaller and cheaper options. (Though they'd have to deal with EPA and NHT…

> The smaller versions of the Ford Transit are a popular option among non-US postal services. And if US Postal Service was willing to buy foreign vehicles, they could have even smaller and cheaper options.

Ford isn't selling the Transit Connect in North America anymore. And they're made in Europe, so despite the brand, they're a foreign vehicle, too.

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