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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

#131

Post by potato3732842 »

ggreer wrote: post #58

I wondered why other delivery companies use commercial vehicles instead of NGDVs or LLVs, and the answer is that commercial vehicles are more capable while being significantly cheaper. NGDVs cost $60,000 each, and that's for half of them being ICE vehicles and half EVs with a 70 mile range (35 miles if you use the heater). The ICE version gets 14.7 miles per gallon (8.6mpg if you turn on the air conditioning).[1] The…

Having wrenched more extensively than I want to on the Transit, the Sprinter and the Promaster I would hand out the pork to a defense contractor ten times over before I bought Euro vans of ANY make because at least they tend to build things with margin in the places you need it even if it's not peak comfort and user experience. The engineering culture and default assumptions are completely different and it shows.

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

#132

Post by KK7NIL »

ggreer wrote: post #130
reaperducer wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rivian vans are commercially available. If you follow the link in your link, you'll see that while new Postal Service trucks are $60,000, the Rivian vans START a $83,000†, and it's simply not possible for the driver of one of those vans to reach a mailbox from inside the vehicle, which is how vast majority of what the new Postal Services will be used. Paying a 40% premium for less capability? That doesn't sound s…

I was just saying that the vehicle is commercially available, not that it was a better option for the US Postal Service. But $83,000 is the retail price. Anyone buying in bulk will get them for significantly cheaper. The $60k for the NGDV is the discounted price for a bulk buy of 50,000, and it's for a mix of ICE and EVs. The ICE vehicles are significantly cheaper to manufacture, so the EV price is probably close to…

> Rivian has significantly greater capabilities.

According to you, some random tech bro CEO who hasn't delivered hundreds of letters a day for decades and is just looking at cost and going "hey, this isn't the cheapest option, it must be one of those darn government projects meant to subsidize those annoying poor people!"

In reality, the USPS studied several other options in use by post offices around the world, from commercial vans to tricycles: https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/...

They've since published further reports on things like how to tighten up the manufacturing contract, opportunities to use EV's, etc etc: https://www.uspsoig.gov/focus-areas/focus-on/next-generation...

But hey, I'm sure you know better!

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

#133

Post by yencabulator »

laurencerowe wrote: post #91
m463 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when it comes to vans they've kind of let go of traditional designs. like https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Dodge-Ra... Now they've gotten the european influence to be very square: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/2015_For... or like the european designed mercedes sprinter, very tall too: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Mercedes...

The European equivalents to the Dodge Ram Van are the smaller Transit Custom or VW Transporter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit_Custom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Transporter The equivalent US trucks mostly used by FedEx and UPS are much squarer than the European designed Transit or Sprinter vans that are now replacing them. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FedEx_Express_truck....

Ram Promaster is a rebranded Fiat Ducato. The European equivalent of it is thus a Fiat Ducato.

UPS uses plenty of Promasters.

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

#134

Post by grogenaut »

klik99 wrote: post #26
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).

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.

If successful and widely deployed they'll become iconic and part of the gestalt. And if the pattern holds I'll be dead before the replacement is put in place.

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

#135

Post by ggreer »

abeppu wrote: post #96
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 know that efficiency is really an explanation. If you look at a list of very aerodynamic cars, there are a bunch of older ones with very different designs. https://carbuzz.com/features/most-aerodynamic-cars/ And the still-not-released Aptera looks very distinctive and is claimed to have a drag coefficient of 0.13. https://electrek.co/2020/12/07/aptera-super-efficient-electr...

Older cars had fewer safety regulations, so they could play around with more designs. Also a lot of the old photos in that post are of concept cars or race cars, not production vehicles.

The Aptera has a unique design because it is considered a motorcycle in the US, so most Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards don't apply to it.

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

#136

Post by telcal »

chongli wrote: post #124
Oarch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is that writer from Philadelphia? Very quirky and colourful writing style!

Was it the jawn? That article was by Jonah Weiner who grew up in NYC.

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

#137

Post by mulmen »

VogonPoetry wrote: post #83
tantalor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No wireless? Less space than a Nomad? Lame" Seriously though, the iTunes integration and cross platform compatibility kind of sucked. It would have been much more useful if you could just mount it like a hard drive without special library management software. The click wheel was cool.

I think that making the iPod mount like a filesystem would have had significant impact on other aspects of the device. There is no filesystem level abstraction over USB (or Firewire). So plugging in presents as a hard drive / block device, which then means it needs to have a filesystem. For "built-in" cross OS compatibility that means it would be have to be a FAT filesystem. If you change these decisions either a new…

Ok but the iPod could literally act as external storage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod

> Some versions of the iPod can serve as external data storage devices, like other digital music players. Prior to macOS 10.15, Apple's iTunes software (and other alternative software) could be used to transfer music, photos, videos, games, contact information, e-mail settings, Web bookmarks, and calendars to the devices supporting these features from computers using certain versions of Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

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

#138

Post by [deleted] »

techjamie wrote: post #80
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).

The low hood is almost definitely to help prevent scraping mailboxes and other objects, but especially mailboxes. My dad was a rural USPS carrier that used his own vehicle, and despite him having been an excellent driver with no accidents on record in his life, he still ended up swapping minor paint with mailboxes a few times. Can't imagine how often it happens across the country.

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by mulmen »

mmooss wrote: post #84
smitelli wrote: post #3

Say what you will about the Grumman LLV, but every one of them you see on the road today is at least 30 years old, and some could be pushing 40. (The similar-looking Ford-Utilimaster FFV is ~25 this year.) As uncomfortable as it must be to sit in one for hours on end (I never had the privilege myself) you've got to respect their longevity. Here's hoping these new trucks make it to the 2050s and beyond.

> every one of them you see on the road today is at least 30 years old, and some could be pushing 40. Survivor bias: The ones you see are the ones that have survived. You don't see the junkyards full of failed trucks.

Ok but how many other 40 year old vehicles do you see?

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

potato3732842 wrote: post #128
fencepost wrote: post #17

How could they not love them in comparison to the 30+ year old vehicles they've been driving?

Frequently "improvements" come at the expense of compromising some key feature for lots of users. This is particularly true in tall organizations where the people doing procurement are far from the users.

[deleted]
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