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.
--
The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing one that
is just good enough. -- Eric S. Raymond
--
Lee Hart's EV projects are at http://www.sunrise-ev.com/LeesEVs.htm
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