Germany’s Post Office built and used ~2,000 custom-built electric delivery trucks in 2016 and deployed ~10.000 per year since 2017.<p>UPS’s 50 seems very low for 2018 in comparison.<p>One article about them: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germany-s-post-office-is-building-an-electric-car" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germ...</a> They are called StreetScooter <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter</a>
I put in a preorder for the Workhorse W-15 pickup at CES (I'd been following them for a year). $1k fully-refundable, same as Model 3.<p><a href="http://workhorse.com/pickup/" rel="nofollow">http://workhorse.com/pickup/</a><p>80 mile electric-only range is great, and it gets electric incentives (federal and more importantly for me, exempt from 40% import duty to Puerto Rico). The great thing as a pickup truck is it works as a stationary power source for tools, either from battery or generator. It's probably inferior to a Tacoma or something for offroad/etc. use, but is still adequate. Apparently their main market for these is the electric utility market, for outside plant maintenance/etc.
In The Netherlands, DHL uses bikes : <a href="http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/releases_2014/express/dhl_express_tests_the_use_of_bicycle_couriers_in_major_german_cities.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/releases_2014/express/d...</a><p>I absolutely hate DHL as a recipient in NL, but this is pretty cool. They have other green vehicles too ( gas, electric ).
It's a pity that the UK used to have a huge fleet of low-speed electric doorstep delivery trucks, devoted to milk and groceries; but they were all phased out just prior to the internet era.
UPS has an interesting approach to their trucks. They call them "cars" first of all, and they are a custom design. Nobody else can buy them, and when they wear out and they are done using them they crush them.<p>I never really understood why that made sense, when all the other courier companies use Sprinters or some other standard vehicle. They must see it as a competitive advantage.
Rural American mail trucks are being replaced with barely-running junk minivans or really whatever can be purchased for the cheapest possible amount, probably the lease emission-aware solution I can think of. I’m not sure if these are workers providing their own transportation on contract or what, but I have seen some very sketchy vehicles delivering mail in multiple states around the US lately.
When EVs advertize 100 mile range, that means in the best conditions. Heavy loads would reduce that. Cold weather itself can make your range worse, and additionally any kind of heating or AC will reduce range further.<p>I recently purchased an EV with a "100 mile range," and it so far hasn't achieved higher than a 70 mile range, given the cold weather, even with 100% charge, no climate control, and no real load. Turn on the heat, and suddenly you lose another 20 miles of range.<p>And it can take ages to charge, with current technology. I don't think this sounds too practical for deliveries, quite yet. But somehow, there are Lyft and Uber drivers who have these.
Regeneration makes sense for frequent starts and stops, though delivery drivers often drive pretty aggressively, so I wonder if they will really get 100 miles range with inefficient driving?
Speaking of custom built electric delivery vehicles...<p>I've been thinking of something purpose built to carry only small cargo and no passengers, i.e. 8 cu ft and 100lb total cargo capacity, with a limited range designed to make delivery runs and then return and charge (or maybe just swap power packs).<p>Nuro [1] is working on something in this vein. I think their vehicle is much too big personally, I would start with something that could carry maybe 30 lbs and 2 cu ft of cargo and scale up from there. While the walking-speed Starship [2] seems like it went too far in the other direction. But it seems like there is space for a cargo-only vehicle that could be extremely useful in the city, particularly if it's an on-demand model where businesses can hail them with an API call.<p>The question is whether a robot like this--which doesn't carry people but still has to operate on the roadways--does it make the AI problem materially easier to solve?<p>And in the spirit of fake-it-till-you-make-it, why not launch the service today by paying "operators" to remote control the vehicle over 4G links with just enough software to do collision avoidance and safely pull over if the operator disconnects?<p>[1] - <a href="https://nuro.ai/" rel="nofollow">https://nuro.ai/</a>
[2] - <a href="https://www.starship.xyz/" rel="nofollow">https://www.starship.xyz/</a>
They're also purchasing bike trailers in Germany... and will deliver by e-bike. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hinterhercom/photos/a.496446767057350.98740.490939550941405/1615849118450437/?type=3&theater" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/hinterhercom/photos/a.4964467670573...</a>
A bit of an aside, but you have to wonder how much electricity they could save on air conditioning by painting their trucks white instead of brown. Perhaps they don't use any AC at all, which means their delivery drivers are stuck in that solar oven all day. I know they now at least paint the tops of their trucks white.<p>Edit: Fixed typo.
Royal Mail (in the UK) is currently trialling an electric post van [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://electrek.co/2017/08/23/royal-mail-new-electric-autonomous-truck-arrival/" rel="nofollow">https://electrek.co/2017/08/23/royal-mail-new-electric-auton...</a>
Though UPS is slow in the race it is very good strategy to tackle the problem. Most UPS or USPS vehicles need only 100-150 miles range, they can charge overnight. No need to wait for a crazy vehicle which has 500 mile range
Fantastic. We shipped 17 tons with UPS in the last year, each shipment utilized their carbon neutral shipping option. I'm glad to see the last mile is getting a bit greener and hopefully more efficient.
They can't get UPS WorldShip to print a label properly (after decades of development). I certainly wouldn't want to ride in any vehicle they designed.