[HN Gopher] USPS Forges Ahead with Gas-Powered Mail Trucks Despi...
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USPS Forges Ahead with Gas-Powered Mail Trucks Despite EPA's Desire
for EVs
Author : keithly
Score : 47 points
Date : 2022-02-23 21:55 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.caranddriver.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.caranddriver.com)
| h2odragon wrote:
| I have the strong impression that the current fleet of LLVs are,
| at this point, each an individual work of patchwork art, still
| moving only due to the constant attention of dedicated genius
| grade mechanics. But that would not be possible had they not been
| built, intentionally, with some of the most common and vanilla
| parts available.
|
| A new fleet that uses parts nothing else does will be an
| expensive boondoggle destined for quick sale as surplus.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I would love for these trucks to be EV's as much as anyone, but I
| can see where USPS is coming from. Some selected quotes from the
| article:
|
| _The USPS did say that it plans to put 5000 electric delivery
| trucks into service starting in 2023 and claims that there is
| room for more EVs to be added to the mix "should additional
| funding become available."_
|
| _"While we can understand why some who are not responsible for
| the financial sustainability of the Postal Service might prefer
| that the Postal Service acquire more electric vehicles, the law
| requires the Postal Service to be self-sufficient," a USPS
| spokesperson told the Post in a statement._
|
| Armchair take: If the EPA really wants these changes, they should
| be lobbying higher up the food chain in order to subsidize these
| EV's in some way.
| newsclues wrote:
| EV or not, why is it so fuel inefficient?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Constant stopping and starting. This is where most car energy
| is expended. Cars are most fuel efficient when they're
| rolling about 50MPH.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| I've heard this many times, but I've never actually seen it
| cited.
| MrRadar wrote:
| It's the reason why vehicles have a separate "city" and a
| "highway" fuel economy rating, since the former takes
| into account the expected stopping and starting you do in
| city traffic which you would not on an uncongested
| highway.
| hobs wrote:
| It's just basic newtonian physics, it takes energy to
| start and stop moving and a lot less to keep doing what
| you are doing.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| They spend lots of time accelerating, braking, and idling.
| [deleted]
| babypuncher wrote:
| Because they spend the vast majority of their operating time
| stopping, idling, and accelerating at low speeds, . They are
| pretty much a worst case scenario for ICE efficiency.
| fpoling wrote:
| But then the cars do not need to be electric! A hybrid with
| a small battery will suite this as well and, given the
| current price of batteries, will be cheaper.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This might be the lobbying. If so, just cut them a check for
| the EV cost delta and installing EV charging stations at USPS
| facilities where vehicles are parked.
| stetrain wrote:
| Yes, this is a bigger policy and legislative failure that let
| the previous gen trucks get so old and the new contract go
| through without a mandate and funding for reduced emissions.
| jfengel wrote:
| That's interesting, since electric vehicles should be cheaper
| in the long run -- especially if they can arrange lower prices
| for overnight charging.
|
| Perhaps the up-front costs of an electric vehicle are
| prohibitive for their constrained financial situation. If so,
| that is an unfortunate bind, if it causes more financial costs
| in the long run.
| wnevets wrote:
| Its shameful that Dejoy is still allowed to ruin the USPS.
| humanistbot wrote:
| Note that this is at the order of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy,
| who was appointed to the post by Trump in 2020. The same one who
| slowed down the mail service around the election and is the
| founder CEO of XPO logistics, which is a huge conflict of
| interest. The Biden administration directed USPS to go electric,
| but they are quasi-independent.
| detaro wrote:
| Given the failures and complaintslast year, why does he still
| have that job? From wikipedia it seems like the politics around
| the board selecting the Postmaster General even being
| functional seem to have been difficult in the past years, is
| that the main reason?
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Give me a break. If the admin wants the postal service to go EV,
| pay for it. The very fact that the USPS remains solvent under the
| conditions they are forced to operate is a damn miracle. Put up
| or shut up.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > Give me a break. If the admin wants the postal service to go
| EV, pay for it. The very fact that the USPS remains solvent
| under the conditions they are forced to operate is a damn
| miracle. Put up or shut up.
|
| From the article:
|
| > President Biden's social spending package proposal unveiled
| last year included $6 billion for the USPS to purchase new
| vehicles, but that proposal is still being debated in Congress.
|
| So it looks like the administration has, in fact, tried to "put
| up".
| CameronNemo wrote:
| _WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of
| Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill on Tuesday to
| provide the Postal Service (USPS) with about $50 billion in
| financial relief over a decade and requiring future retirees to
| enroll in a government health insurance plan._
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-approves-50-billio...
|
| _Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., blocked an initial vote Monday [Feb
| 14] on the Postal Service bill, saying it needed to be
| reworked._
|
| https://apnews.com/article/business-postal-service-marsha-bl...
|
| Go ahead and keep blaming this administration for problems
| created by Bush that Republicans in the Senate refuse to
| remedy.
| anm89 wrote:
| God forbid I wouldn't get junkmail littered through my mail slot
| one day.
| theedman wrote:
| I really think this is a best-case scenario for a hybrid. You get
| EV-ish efficiency in the city, a decrease in wear on mechanical
| parts, especially things like brakes, and no range related issues
| that come with a BEV - if using hybrid SUV's as a datapoint,
| modern hybrid systems even get better MPG on the highway then
| their gas counterparts.
|
| It's clear that if you buy a consumer vehicle, the extra cost a
| hybrid pays quickly off over the course of ownership, and
| maintenance isn't nearly as expensive as it was when the came out
| 20 years ago.
|
| I totally get why hybrid 18-wheelers don't exist - there's very
| little stopping involved, so the benefits of the regenerative
| braking, and the off-the-line electric efficiency are null, but
| USPS trucks have to stop hundreds of times per trip.
|
| Modern day hybrids are fuel efficient, generally more powerful
| then their gas counterparts, and are bullet-proof enough to be
| used as taxi cab fleets in NYC. Someone's going to say that you
| need to haul a bunch of stuff. The F150 Hybrid gets 25mpg vs the
| 20mpg of the gas. It really doesn't make sense to me.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| So stupid.
| post_break wrote:
| They must be paying for these with the funds from not having to
| install mailboxes. We found out the law changed recently and now
| communal mail boxes are no longer their responsibility which is
| crazy.
| twothamendment wrote:
| I can understand not switching 100% all at once, but it seems
| like they'd want to stick their foot in the water and try it out
| in some ideal areas.
|
| As someone who lives in an area that is outside the norm (postal
| vehicles aren't the standard issue), it wouldn't be a good idea
| here - but they have to be perfect for somewhere...
| ars wrote:
| They are - I read they are doing 10% EV's, with flexibility to
| increase that if it works well.
|
| It seems to me the ones asking for EV are not the ones paying
| for it, which seems to be the problem.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| IIRC, this design does allow for switching over to
| manufacturing an EV powertrain relatively easily. Not sure if
| this is also true for conversion of already built vehicles but
| even if not, over time attrition would move most over to EV.
| warning26 wrote:
| So weird, considering that mail delivery seems perfectly suited
| for EVs; the charging can be consolidated where trucks are parked
| overnight anyway.
| lettergram wrote:
| You can't drive 8 hrs on a single charge. Particularly in
| colder climates with less population density. My mail is
| delivered by someone driving a jeep down a creek lol
|
| From a cost-benefit perspective gas is still king. Otherwise
| you'll need 1.5-2x EV trucks for every one gas powered.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://electrek.co/2016/02/25/mail-man-tesla-model-s/
|
| https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/customer-stories/electric-mail
|
| With an EV, it's a function of route distance, not route
| time.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>You can't drive 8 hrs on a single charge
|
| If you're doing a grand total of a 100 miles in those 8
| hours, you sure can - and city delivery vehicles will do even
| less than that. Yes sure it won't work if you're driving
| hundreds of miles every day - but even with postal services
| that's extremely rare, those are last mile delivery trucks
| not long distance transporters
| labster wrote:
| My mail is delivered by a guy who parks halfway down the
| block, walks to 20 houses or so, then moves the truck every
| 20 min or so. I doubt he spends more than a half hour driving
| every day. Obviously rural routes should not use EVs yet but
| this is not the majority of mail delivery.
| aleksandrm wrote:
| Someone is probably pocketing from the deal. Always follow the
| money.
| [deleted]
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean even if they went with EVs you could still say that.
| Who _isn 't_ financially motivated by obscenely wasteful
| government contracts?
|
| $11.3 billion / 150 thousand trucks = $73k / truck
| voldemort1968 wrote:
| People think this kind of logic is an example of thinking,
| but it's actually thought suppression.
| humanistbot wrote:
| > People think this kind of logic is an example of
| thinking, but it's actually thought suppression.
|
| You think the kind of logic you expressed is an example of
| thinking, but it is literally thought suppression, because
| you are using it to try to get someone to stop thinking
| about a certain thing (following the money) and not giving
| them anything else to think about.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| "follow the money" would actually give you the opposite
| conclusion.
|
| It's not free to switch to electric. Infrastructure costs
| like building charging stations and maintenance, labor
| costs like retraining drivers, and a huge number of other
| costs must be modeled before understanding the true
| economics.
|
| Merely saying "someone is probably pocketing"
| demonstrates a shallow analysis of the situation.
| guynamedloren wrote:
| What?
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| Explain this comment to me. It seems reasonable to come to
| the conclusion that someone is profiting on the side from
| this deal. Especially given the current postmaster general.
| Is there some other trail of thought you think is being
| neglected from jumping to this conclusion?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's a silly comment because any deal would involve
| someone making a profit.
| haswell wrote:
| Would you expand on why you believe this to be true?
|
| I don't think it's wise to focus _only_ on money without
| considering other factors; however, when looking at
| decisions like this that don 't make sense on the surface,
| especially when political factors are in play, money is
| very often going to be a driving factor.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| If you have a surface level understanding of a problem
| and don't understand the proposed solution, then the best
| path forward is to dig a little deeper and understand the
| problem better, or just move on with your life and accept
| that you can't know everything about every field.
|
| Deciding that your surface level understanding of the
| problem coupled with some general concepts (ie money is
| often a driving factor), is enough to make a confident
| pronouncement on the issue is exactly self-inflicted
| thought suppression.
| Uehreka wrote:
| Part of the problem is that people say "I'm telling you
| someone's making a buck, just follow the money", then
| they don't actually follow the money. For many people,
| it's enough to just say that catchphrase and not even
| bother looking into it. The argument wins itself.
|
| Another part of the problem is that when I do see people
| follow the money, they often come up with something like
| "the deputy undersecretary of the USPS's brother used to
| work for Ford (as a mechanic at a dealership when they
| were in college)!" And then they treat that fact as if it
| overrules all the complicated forces that go into this
| kind of organizational decision-making.
|
| So no, following the money is not a bad idea on paper.
| But in practice it's often very sloppy, to the point that
| it's frequently annoying when trying to have meaningful
| debate about policy issues.
| SllX wrote:
| > when looking at decisions like this that don't make
| sense on the surface
|
| The USPS is ordering a fleet of trucks to operate in all
| of the United States of America from the Arctic Circle to
| Hawaii and the Florida Keys. They can't just order EVs,
| they have to order the infrastructure to charge them and
| they need mechanics that can service them, and the trucks
| have to be able to operate anywhere the USPS deploys
| them.
|
| Maybe that's an argument for a mixed fleet, and there's
| certainly room for criticism in any large government
| expenditure and of USPS itself, but it does not on the
| surface make no sense given that we still depend on USPS
| to deliver Mail to a service area that per Congressional
| mandate includes every address in America. Personally I
| think a mid-generation partial upgrade of the fleet to
| EVs would give USPS time to work out kinks, charging
| infrastructure and mechanic concerns without sacrificing
| the reliability of their service ahead of the generation
| after this one is probably the way to go.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| My dad was a rural mail carrier. It's stop go stop go. I don't
| think it would be a great EV use case at all.
|
| USPS is pretty smart/efficient with this stuff.
| ars wrote:
| Stop/go is perfect for EV, although I think rural areas are
| not a good choice.
|
| Maybe they should do a mix: EV urban, and gas rural.
| mft_ wrote:
| Low speed urban stop-go driving _is_ where EVs excel versus
| ICE, I think?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's pretty extreme. Brake pads every 7-10k miles.
|
| I would think that it would be pretty draining. Perhaps
| not!
| mft_ wrote:
| Again, with regenerative braking, something else that EVs
| are also better at :)
| stetrain wrote:
| EVs slow down by generating power and putting it back in
| the battery. Many EV owners report brakes lasting 100k
| miles or more due to the reduced usage.
| MrMan wrote:
| its great for EV, its low speed, they do best in stop and go
| type traffic.
| danans wrote:
| That's exactly the driving pattern EVs are most efficient at
| oh_sigh wrote:
| stop/go/stop/go is perfect for regenerative braking at the
| very least(not necessarily limited to EVs, but more common
| with them than ICEs). Also, on the stop portions, there would
| be zero emissions. I imagine the stop portions are probably a
| bigger overall part of the day than the go portions, at least
| based on how my mailman operates.
| seiferteric wrote:
| plus all the starting and stopping, you would think would
| benefit from regenerative breaking.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The USPS delivers mail in both urban and rural, famously,
| regardless of the climates of those locations. I still think
| EVs are a generation short of being able to be deployed in this
| type of "long life" fleet, and I'm not sure there is enough
| manufacturing capacity to build the fleet fast enough for the
| USPS.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Most rural delivery is handled by contractors who use their
| own vehicles, I believe.
| boardwaalk wrote:
| re: manufacturing. They're only looking at buying 150k
| trucks. Even Tesla (famously more valued than their output)
| has a run rate of over a million per year now. So I'm not
| thinking that's really an issue.
|
| The cost/time to bring up a production line for just these
| trucks doesn't seem like it should be cheaper if their gas
| either. If anything, sharing a 'skateboard' with a delivery
| van or something would make it even easier.
| stetrain wrote:
| The average USPS _rural_ route is 45 miles, well within the
| capability of even the lowest end EVs especially given the
| low average speeds and constant stop-and-go with regen
| braking.
|
| Sure there are routes that would be unsuited for EV right
| now, but it should be closer to 90/10 than 10/90.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Probably a mix would make most sense. In shorter routes
| electric with capacity to charge during downtimes makes
| sense. For very long ones gas isn't bad option.
| babypuncher wrote:
| They are adopting a mix, looking to inject 5,000 EVs into
| their fleet by sometime next year.
| SllX wrote:
| Not that weird when you consider that purchasing EVs also means
| purchasing _and_ deploying the infrastructure to charge them.
| That's not a small operation for a service area that includes
| every single address in the United States of America.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| My area's utility has the funding to place them all over the
| state. This would have been a good opportunity to cooperate
| and pilot the system here.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There would also be a considerable infrastructure charge at
| every post office and practical considerations of being able to
| supply adequate materials to actually build all of the mail
| trucks... on top of that batteries which will degrade,
| especially faster as some mail vehicles will be used > 100
| miles a day.
|
| I think it's still fair at this point to think conversion of an
| enormous fleet of vehicles might not yet be the pragmatic
| choice.
| ars wrote:
| Seems to be a money thing - anyone know how much gas vs electric
| costs for postal vehicles?
|
| This https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-
| releases/2021/0223-... gives no details.
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(page generated 2022-02-23 23:00 UTC)