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[DonTom]

Did I really beat Richard with this news here?

"President Biden will make entire 645k federal vehicle fleet electric"

See here.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Crissa]

It's a good start.

They probably won't buy Tesla, tho they'll be the only one capable of filling the order.

-Crissa

[DonTom]

It's a good start.

They probably won't buy Tesla, tho they'll be the only one capable of filling the order.

-Crissa

The last I heard, Tesla sells every vehicle they can make. That is why Tesla does  NOT advertise anywhere at all.

Has something changed with Tesla with their ability to manufacture more cars?

It could be the opposite of what you expect.  Perhaps Tesla is the only one who is not capable of filling the order.

-Don-  Reno, NV

[Crissa]

Has something changed with Tesla with their ability to manufacture more cars?

...They're more than doubling their manufacturing capability (They made 50 GWh last year, they're aiming for over 200 GWh next) by building new factories?

-Crissa

[Fran K]

That isn't a particularly good link for this topic.

What do you think Don?

Form exploratory commission, zero emission not limited to electric, union workers no telling how far down the supply chain.  State, local, and tribal.

How did the tco work out for those electric Chevy's?

[Richard230]

That was a new one on me. But then I get most of my news from my morning newspaper and it hasn't arrived yet.   

Good luck with that plan. I don't thing the federal government is ready to have all of their vehicles powered by batteries. They don't have the infrastructure and likely need more range than can be provided at this time for most of their needs. Plus, you had better believe that the drivers of these EVs are going to need retraining to deal with range anxiety and other issues.  And then there are the government vehicle maintenance shops. Talk about retraining. That is going to be a lot more difficult than just buying the new vehicles, especially for military vehicles.  I recommend baby steps first before jumping into the EV ocean.

If Biden is going to toss EV money around, lets start first with the U.S. Postal Service to replace their Jeep-like local delivery vehicles and see how that goes? That would be a perfect usage for electric vehicles considering the current state of the technology. And it is about time that those long-suffering Jeeps finally are retired to a rest home. 

[DonTom]

G I don't thing the federal government is ready to have all of their vehicles powered by batteries. They don't have the infrastructure and likely need more range than can be provided at this time for most of their needs.

If Biden is going to toss EV money around, lets start first with the U.S. Postal Service to replace their Jeep-like local delivery vehicles and see how that goes? That would be a perfect usage for electric vehicles considering the current state of the technology. And it is about time that those long-suffering Jeeps finally are retired to a rest home. 

In most cases, I doubt they will need any infrastructure.  I assume they will start with the vehicles that don't need much range and can charge where they are usually parked. The post office vehicles were mentioned there, and that is a good place to start.

Also, Biden says there will soon be many more charge stations.

-Don-  Reno, NV

[Electric_Adventures]

That was a new one on me. But then I get most of my news from my morning newspaper and it hasn't arrived yet.   

Good luck with that plan. I don't thing the federal government is ready to have all of their vehicles powered by batteries. They don't have the infrastructure and likely need more range than can be provided at this time for most of their needs. Plus, you had better believe that the drivers of these EVs are going to need retraining to deal with range anxiety and other issues.  And then there are the government vehicle maintenance shops. Talk about retraining. That is going to be a lot more difficult than just buying the new vehicles, especially for military vehicles.  I recommend baby steps first before jumping into the EV ocean.

If Biden is going to toss EV money around, lets start first with the U.S. Postal Service to replace their Jeep-like local delivery vehicles and see how that goes? That would be a perfect usage for electric vehicles considering the current state of the technology. And it is about time that those long-suffering Jeeps finally are retired to a rest home. 

Honestly, going slow is not really an option anymore.  The time to slowly start replacing govt transportation with EVs slowly was several years ago.  Now that basically everything that happens is too little, too late, fast electrification is the only option.  There are plenty of vehicles outside Tesla that can fill more than 50% of govt needs right now (Chevy Bolt, Hyundai Kona, Nissan Leaf Base Model).  I’m sure Tesla, as an American based company will enjoy filling some of these gaps as well with a standard range plus M3.  This isn’t a change that has to happen tomorrow, but will probably end up being carried out over the next 3-4 years, which politically speaking, is quick for this change.  A significant boost to the EV market in America.  I doubt this will be limited by production and even if it is, there isn’t just one manufacturer to look to with this problem.  GM will probably be a huge player in the next three years, Tesla could be building 3 million cars a year by 2024.  I don’t know if Tesla will always be in a position of barely filling orders soon.

[caza]

To me Chevy would make the most sense from a political perspective given both the previous GM bailouts and the fact that they still use union labor, unlike tesla. Buying tesla's luxury ev's for gov workers would have terrible optics as well.

Acting like this is going to happen overnight is naïve. It doesn't matter how fast it needs to happen, our gov. simply does not work that quickly, and replacing 654k vehicles is going to take time. Like a lot of Biden's executive actions this is more of a signal to show the direction his administration wants to steer the ship. It's still a long journey.       

I agree that USPS is a great place to invest this way, but that will take even more time especially considering USPS has bought a large number of ICE van's fairly recently to replace the old Grumman LLV's. They aren't going to replace a fleet of vehicles they just bought a few years ago.                                                             

[NEW2elec]

I think this could be a great opportunity for a company to really try to roll out a plug and play EV conversion kit for things like the mail Jeeps.
As the engine wears out pull them in and swap it out.  All those bodies won't be good for anything else anyway.

[caza]

Unfortunately even though conversion kits are the greenest way to transition to electric, I don't see them growing much.

Good kits + the labor to install them typically cost more than an entire new replacement vehicle with all the modern bells and whistles, and they can't be warrantied and serviced in a straightforward accessible way.

The economics of the situation make it so it's a better choice to either drive the vehicle as an ICE car until the end of its life or just replace it with a brand new electric car.

I expect conversions to stay extremely niche for this reason.

The Grumman LLV's already have 30 year lifespans. There's not a huge reason to extend their lives further at this point, and more importantly the needs of mail carriers have changed. The LLV was designed and sized for mostly envelope mail and minimal packages, but the internet, amazon, and covid have both changed the game and now packages are a huge part of the delivery work. Those LLV's are just not up to the task or the volume, which is part of why they've already replaced so many of them with modern vans.

It doesn't help that it doesn't have air conditioning, and the fusebox is right under the wipers which causes alarmingly frequent fires.

[Crissa]

Those mail 'vehicles' aren't really worth saving.  They weren't built with aerodynamics or repairability or even 'will the windows bake the driver' as considerations.

-Crissa

[Richard230]

Those mail 'vehicles' aren't really worth saving.  They weren't built with aerodynamics or repairability or even 'will the windows bake the driver' as considerations.

-Crissa

Still they are better than the tip-over three-wheel Cushman scooters that were being used when I had a summer job delivering mail in 1963.  There were some streets in my town that the things wouldn't climb and the mail carrier would have to park the scooter at the bottom of the hill and lug the mail up the street to deliver it. What really wasn't appreciated was that they would tip over if you made a sharp turn at too high a speed (say 20 mph) That was a USPS experiment that didn't quite work out. 

[NEW2elec]

Well aerodynamics don't matter at 15mph from one mailbox to the next.  A big sprinter van would be harder to pass on a two lane road.
Also the bad dirt roads in rural areas are one of the reasons they went with the Jeep platform in the first place.

The guys on the Zero EV channel talk about their Mazda and Porsche crate kits that will have everything an owner will need to do a full EV conversion.  They aren't cheap by any means but all the connections and mounting brackets are included so a good mechanic should be able to swap it out with no issue.  This is a very small market of course but at the scale of hundreds of thousands of units the price would drop dramatically.


 

[caza]

Scale won't drop the price dramatically. Most of the price is still the battery, significant amount is the labor, and neither one of those are going to change the price much with scale.  You might get some savings on the motor controller and wire, but not enough to make up the difference. The brackets and adapter plates will go down with scale, but these are such small parts of the cost that it's pretty much irrelevant.

But again, the biggest issue is simply that the Grumman LLV is not worth saving at this point.

You keep saying Jeep, does your area use actual jeeps or the Grumman's most common to USPS?