Featured President wants to replace government fleet with EV's.

True, but The Government has no money. It gets capital by taking it from people The Government underwrites the Post Office with the money it takes from citizens. The citizens are paying for the Postal Services with taxes maybe rather than the true cost of the stamp. In the end the people are underwriting the Post Office not the Government. Sometimes we fantasize that large corporations pay taxes but they are really the middleman in money transfer. A Company must have a set profit margin to stay in business, any tax is passed on to the customers of that company in the way of higher prices for the product. For example if we decide to have higher taxes on fast food companies they will raise the prices on their offering to collect the additional revenue to give to the Government. There is no getting around the ultimate reality that the citizen taxpayer has to fund the Government. If we wonder who will be responsible for the current government debt we need look no further than the closest mirror or at our children.

 

My workplace was built in 1940. The elevators were replaced a couple years ago. They still worked fine, but parts have been out of stock for some time. Anything for a repair, or even maintenance, meant ordering a custom made part with a high price tag.

The hood of the LLV might say Grumman, but the running gear is all GM. The chassis and suspension come from the '80s S-10 Blazer and pick up. The Iron Duke engine was last built in 1993. That 3 speed tranny was last put into a 1998 Sidekick. The newest LLV itself was built in 1994.

These are 20 plus old Chevies with tens of thousands of some of the hardest miles an ICE car will see on them. Things will start breaking more often with that time and use. Calling the factory for a new engine or transmission is no longer an option. The USPS is a huge customer, but producing parts for just them isn't as cheap as for them plus a huge fleet of vehicles in private and commercial hands.

They might already do this, but outsourcing doesn't always mean cheaper. The USPS is probably getting a bulk discount on the tires they buy.

To save on fuel, many in town mail trucks park, and the mail carrier delivers the mail on foot for a block or two. However, mail has been shifting from letters to packages. For this reason, the LLV replacement will likely be bigger. It will likely also be some van already in production. The USPS is a big enough customer to get the modifications they want, and for a better price, than another fleet operator.

Leasing may be a short term option, until more EV vans hit the market, but an order from the USPS would do a lot to advance the market and acceptance.

Would be great to see Tesla make a bid, but I suspect their plate is full. Perhaps one of the traditional coach builders will approach them for the drive train.

Federal budget is for another forum. I'll just say it comes down to whether you feel a service is important enough to society to not rely on the profit motivator to provide it.

 

I may have strayed off topic here. . I will not comment on that element of the topic further- Thank you for mentioning about the other forum

 

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Discussing the USPS runs a fine line between being political or technical. Same with general car procurement by the feds.

Comparing purchase and operating costs of potential options is technical. How those costs are paid becomes political.

The costs of keeping the LLV fleet running has gotten high, and many of the trucks have been in service past their original design life. A plug in replacement would reduce costs, and work well within the expected duty cycle. An USPS order would spur on the EV delivery van field. But I wouldn't be opposed to a temporary solution of off the shelf vans until the various EV ones currently in development work out.

 

Getting bids with a plug-in requirement will take some time, then time to production. In 2020 the postal service chose the mercedes metris. I doubt it is a good choice but it is better than rushing or just repairing the broken down vehicles.

USPS will replace 17,300 Grumman LLVs with turbocharged Mercedes Metris Vans over three years - Alt Car news

 

It also said that the average LLV used 2 gallons per day and traveled 18 miles total per day.
If this is true it means that the USPS could get by with something like a 50 mile battery and a 200 mile battery.
With most trucks being 50 miles and charged every 2 days, for example.

Mike

 

Yes it should be fairly easy to figure out worst weather milage by driving a prototype. Ford on their e-transit delivery van has benchmarked 126 miles epa from a 75 kwh pack. The duty cycle in cold weather is going to be worse and often roads have snow or are gravel, so I would probably use a 50 kwh pack weighing about 300 kg for the smaller pack. That should be fairly inexpensive and provide at least 10 years degredation in the worst conditions and still only need to be charged at night (and not every night).

 

Workhorse is the only all EV truck of the three remaining contenders for the USPS contract. But this industry is just starting to come out with new products, such as the Arrival and Rivian, so maybe the USPS should wait a bit until things settle out. There may be better alternatives available soon.

GM is trying to get into this market with their BrightDrop EV600 van with at 250 mile range. GM also manufactures their own Ultium electric batteries. Battery availability has proven to be a key issue in EV delivery, as we have seen with the Toyota Rav4 Prime, which sold less than 5000 this year in the US despite it being a popular car, because of battery delivery issues. (They supposedly have a contract with Panasonic for next years supply which should solve that problem).

I've seen industry commentators suggest that GM is going to try to get the USPS contract. (Maybe they should buy Workhorse--that would get them another factory, which used to be their factory, and a shortcut into the USPS contract)

 

How will the USPS specs for trucks change as the USPS is replaced by Amazon delivery of Amazon packages? As more people pay bills online? How will the shade tree mechanic who maintains the 20 year old vans cope with an EV and its high current danger? I'm glad I don't have to put out that spec for bid.

 

Except that packages and mail are arriving with one carrier. Duplicate that over the same route to accommodate two vehicle sizes and personnel costs go crazy.

And a/c for a postal van that has the door open or a postal car that has the window open? Does this make any sense? Even a strong fan would blow paper mail around.

I watch as my carrier approaches my mailbox at the curb of my street. Ergonomics is important, access to package shelves is important. None of this opening a hatch to get to a package.

And a Prius is a complex vehicle, just price a complex repair on one. My son got a quote to rebuild his engine of $8500.

 

If this is the case, then perhaps any thread that begins with the phrase... "The President wants to replace X" should be moved there....
Again....a case CAN be made to replace LLVs with a COTS LLVe......(which is still in development) but any assertions about cost savings should be taken with about a butt-ton of Sodium Chloride.....

As for whether or not "a service is important enough to society to not rely on the profit motivator to provide it" the same thing can be said for education....military spending....etc all of which have budgetary constraints, which probably should be discussed elsewhere.

 

Seams at one time - I read that the post office is supposed to be self-supporting from postage costs (just like fedex, DHL, UPS etc). No?

 

I think we would need to go to a politics thread to fully discuss, but here is some perspective, that I am trying to depolitize. The only postal system that actually is profitable on its own is deutsche Post DHL (DP-DHL), but this is quite different than restrictions on the American postal system. The German government still owns 21% of the company, but it has been privatized and regulated. DP was partially privatized in 1995, it started buying up shares of American founded DHL in 1998 with the help of the German government. It was fully privatized in 2000, and got a non government board of directors and did an IPO where the German government and development bank sold part of their ownership. In 2002 DP bought the rest of DHL becoming not just a postal service, but an international package delivery and logistics company. It uses some of the profits from the DHL side to make the German post office side work more effectively. It also has effectively a monopoly for domestic package delivery.

What does the profitable post office from another country do about postal vehicles(pv)? In 2014 DP-DHL bought electric vehicle manufacturer streetscooter gmbh with the intent to replace their 30,000 pv with BEV powered ones. This year they will have completed replacing half of them, but will stop and shutdown the streetscooter van business. They will buy better bev pv from other manufacturers. Meanwhile the USPS is buying some temporarily replacement diesel postal vans from daimler.

On losses by the USPS, it doesn't own UPS which would be part of what Germany did, and politicization has made it tough for amazon to depend on them for the profitable to USPS last mile of package delivery. Every national postal service has to take losses to service rural areas.
The Post Office Is Always Losing Money. It’s Not Its Fault. | Barron's

Btw a stamp in germany for domestic post is 0.80 euros (about $0.97 USD) versus us price of $0.55. Germany has better roads and less rural delivery.

 

There will still be the contracts with UPS, FedEx, and other private carriers. It will also be awhile before Amazon reaches all the remote ares of the US that traditionally rely on mail order for goods, if they ever do.

People paying bills online is already part of the reason mail has shifted from letters to packages in amount. More online bill paying, means packages making up a larger part of the mix. Which is why the USPS called for a larger van that could carry more weight.

The mechanics will be trained how the safely work on the new vans. Just like they were trained to safely work with flammable fuel systems. The high voltage cables on electrified cars aren't bright orange for aesthetic reasons.

The LLV has such a fan, and that wasn't enough to keep postal carriers from being cooked to death in them.

There are carrier comments to the Metrix article @austingreen linked too. No compliments for the van's ergonomics.

Off the shelf commercial vans are designed for typical operation, where driving and accessing cargo are separate tasks. The factory interior typically includes a cage dividing the passenger area from the cargo one. Combined with a tight front, means the USPS carrier has the park and get out of the Metrix more often. Many also have swinging doors. The USPS wants sliding doors for the driver and cargo space, because obstacles like lamp posts won't keep them from opening.

Rural mail carriers don't use a LLV, they use their own car. I believe we once had a member that used their Prius for such. They are paid a mileage rate for their routes. The fuel savings of a Prius could easily cover any repairs that may be needed.

The complexity of all vehicles have been increasing, and the general trend has been greater reliability with it. Yes, a repair can cost more, but it will likely be less common.

That will be stepping into politics.

Decided to start a political thread.
https://priuschat.com/threads/president-wants-to-replace-government-fleet-with-evs.222854/

 

Don't forget, many rural USPS delivery vehicles are also RHD.

 

And others are LHD with the carrier sitting in the passenger seat when driving between mail boxes.

 

This article and picture of a British Postal vehicle now in trials may add to the discussion


UK’s Royal Mail postal service is now trialling electric vans around London - The Verge


"Arrival has a new factory in Banbury, and the electric vans are some of the first vehicles produced there. The company claims it’ll be able to produce 50,000 vehicles yearly from the factory, using just AI and robots."

 

Arrival is the company UPS is working with.