Current USPS mail truck ice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV
The opec.org oil-embargo fuel-shortage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC#1973_oil_embargo created a need for USPS EVs. Here is a KurbWatt postal EV (circa 1984) http://www.ebaymotorsblog.com/rare-1983-all-electric-kurbwatt-postal-van/ https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/electric-vehicles.pdf Scroll down 35% of this page to show some USPS EV history At EVS-12 (Electric Vehicle Symposium back in 1994) http://www.evs27.org/evs-history Ford was touting how they were supplying EVs to the USPS http://www.napsnet.com/pdf_archive/33/50509.pdf Grumman vehicles replaced the Ford EVs http://insideevs.com/should-the-us-postal-service-fleet-go-electric/ At SF Bay area EAA Chapters at that time, a USPS fleet manager made an excellent presentation on what they were doing with EVs. This was back when fuel was ~$1gal in the U.S., see the bottom of http://www.fveaa.org/docs/newsletters/1994/FVEAA-newsletter-1994-11.pdf Sadly, as Lee posted, there were many forces against these EVs (paid-off sabotaging-efforts, or just people angry from stirred up from anti-EV hate-talk media-outlets - AM radio, paper-publications, etc. This was back when the Internet was fledgling). circa 2000 data http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/avta/pdfs/fsev/usps/fleet/2summarysections1_3.pdf (where is says repairs, substitute sabotage-damaged by vehicle maintenance personnel) The Avcon EVSE charging put in at a few USPS sites was not the full 40A source but set at 30A, so recharging was slower than it could have been. See the image 45% down the page http://www.afdc.energy.gov/pdfs/usps_cs.pdf If you look 50% down the above page, it shows only a small saving because fuel was so cheap back then. Later, that USPS manager mentioned off the cuff to me that he had experienced so much resistance and political maneuvering against USPS EVs in the fleet, he had to kowtow, else get a permanent black-eye against his career (he wisely chose to protect his income that paid the bills for his family, and move on to a different job). When the USPS trashed their EVs and ripped out all the Avcon EVSE, a local EAA Chapter was able to get a few of the Avcon EVSE, and re-purpose them as public EVSE. But that did not work as well as hoped because of the 30A limitation (like j1772, Avcons usually were connected to a 40A 208-240VAC source). Those USPS Avcon EVSE that the EAA re-purposed are now gone, replaced by ClipperCreek CS-40 j1772 EVSE as part of a CA state Government program to upgrade those old public EVSE. In other countries, the use of EVs for mail service does not get the political heat that they do in the use. I have posted newswires on these http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=postal+electric&days=0 They show that there are many Kangoo, eNV200, and other production EVs that are in mail service around the world. Of all of these non-U.S. mail service EVs I have posted, this New Zealand one caught my eye http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9879622/Posties-test-out-electric-new-rides It really seems that like the same dismantling/zev-teeth-removal of CARB back in the 2000's, has happened again with CARB's change to kowtow to political and or Oil/Automaker pressure to give EVs less zev credits (non-EV favoritism). <EV-dream-mode> % Now if we (the EV-cause) only had millions of dollar$ coming from each person filling their fuel tank at the pump to fight these anti-EV forces ... % <EV-dream-mode/> {brucedp.150m.com} On Sun, Jun 29, 2014, at 01:37 PM, Lee Hart via EV wrote: > EVDL Administrator via EV wrote: > > It appears to me that EVs have not yet been a success in postal > delivery. I > > can't understand why not. Anyone with other (I hope more positive) > > information please post it. > > I have some information on this regarding the US Postal Service's > efforts. > > The Post Office itself has always been against the idea. But several > times, Congress has forced them to try pilot EV programs. As you might > expect, politics wound up playing a bigger role than engineering. > > Many of the suppliers had little or no experience building such > vehicles. There were thus serious "teething" problems with all vehicle > systems, not just the EV components (body integrity, safety, brakes, > steering, etc.) > > My father was a mail carrier, and a staunch member of the NALC (postal > union). The union was dead set against EVs, and their members often went > out of their way to sabotage the EV pilot programs. > > Nevertheless, some of the vehicles that weren't purposely wrecked > performed well. The EVs from Smith's Electric Vehicles in England did > very well, since they have been building on-road EV delivery vehicles > for 50+years. But they couldn't be chosen because they were "foreign". > AM General supplied some DJ5 Postal Jeep EV conversions that worked > exactly like their ICE versions. However, they already had the contract > for ICE postal jeeps, and like every other auto company, they had zero > interest in changing them to EVs. - -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EV-potential-Postal-Service-and-7-MPG-average-tp4670191p4670200.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
