
UPS is working on a fleet of 50 custom-built electric delivery trucks - hackme1234
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/ups-is-working-on-a-fleet-of-50-custom-built-electric-delivery-trucks/
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Jakob
Germany’s Post Office built and used ~2,000 custom-built electric delivery
trucks in 2016 and deployed ~10.000 per year since 2017.

UPS’s 50 seems very low for 2018 in comparison.

One article about them:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-
germ...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germany-s-
post-office-is-building-an-electric-car) They are called StreetScooter
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter)

~~~
jcrawfordor
I can't help but notice that the StreetScooter is significantly smaller than a
typical UPS truck. It looks in the size range of a Ford Transit Connect, while
most UPS trucks are Utilimaster curb vans that are something like 25' in
length. I suspect that the balance of vehicle size and mileage might make this
kind of adoption rather difficult for UPS - I live in a city, but not a very
dense one, where I'm pretty confident that UPS trucks can regularly clock a
couple of hundred miles per day.

Incidentally this city is also in the process of adopting a fleet of battery-
electric transit buses, but it's been a very rough process for the same sorts
of reasons - very large vehicles that run very long routes in this relatively
far-flung city. The buses failure in testing to deliver the promised 270 mile
range has been a major issue with them, as the roughly 200 they're able to do
isn't sufficient to complete their planned schedule.

~~~
fencepost
In at least some parts of Germany they're more likely to encounter narrow
streets where the typical US brown UPS truck might have real difficulty
navigating.

I also suspect that the routes are shorter than you might think, because there
are a lot of stops and they are not moving all that fast for most of the trip.
I suspect most UPS trucks probably average well under 25 miles per hour for
most of their travel which would put an 8 hour day around 200 miles. In denser
areas like cities it could be significantly less than that. If a truck makes a
1-minute stop to toss a package on your porch then drives half a mile in
another minute and repeats, it's still only covering 15 miles and 30 packages
an hour.

I wouldn't be surprised if UPS trucks within cities tended to be below 50
miles/day most of the time, and since they control driving routes very tightly
they can easily put these trucks only on appropriate routes.

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rdl
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.

[http://workhorse.com/pickup/](http://workhorse.com/pickup/)

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.

~~~
slimsag
I didn't see this mentioned on their site anywhere / had to Google it. The
truck is $52,000.. I can't imagine picking that over a Tundra for $31,120.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Incentives + taxes. I didn't know Puerto Rico normally had a 40% tax on
vehicles! Kind of like how a Tesla Model S is economical in Norway given the
taxes on the alternatives.

~~~
rdl
The Puerto Rico tax is...weird. It goes up highly progressively on value (I
think 40% over 40k), it seems to be different for importer/dealer vs.
individual, etc., but the 2015 electric exemption is nice.

(But, in exchange via act 20+22: zero capital gains (LT/ST), zero tax on
dividends, and consulting/services/export revenue are taxed at 0-4% -- all
guaranteed through at least 2035. Seems to be becoming quite the hub for
traders and cryptocurrency people, plus some saas/consultancy types, which
becomes interesting to me for network effect reasons.)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> (But, in exchange via act 20+22: zero capital gains (LT/ST), zero tax on
> dividends, and consulting/services/export revenue are taxed at 0-4% -- all
> guaranteed through at least 2035. Seems to be becoming quite the hub for
> traders and cryptocurrency people, plus some saas/consultancy types, which
> becomes interesting to me for network effect reasons.)

And in exchange for that, Puerto Rico is broke. But that is not a topic for
here and now :)

~~~
rdl
I think it's in the other direction of causality "Puerto Rico was broke, so
they passed all these incentives in 2006 and enhanced them in 2017".

But it does create a lot of perverse incentives; it's a better deal for me to
move to PR and do stuff than for a PR-born kid to go to HS on-island, college
in the US, and then return to PR to run a business. There is almost an
argument for constitutionality/equal protection.

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the-dude
In The Netherlands, DHL uses bikes :
[http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/releases_2014/express/d...](http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/releases_2014/express/dhl_express_tests_the_use_of_bicycle_couriers_in_major_german_cities.html)

I absolutely hate DHL as a recipient in NL, but this is pretty cool. They have
other green vehicles too ( gas, electric ).

~~~
tequila_shot
how is gas green?

~~~
fastbeef
Biogas can be generated by fermenting sewage. All buses in Stockholm run on
it, it burns extremely clean and is carbon-neutral since it utilizes carbon
already in the present carbon cycle.

~~~
devy
All yeast strains produce some amount of hydrogen sulfide during fermentation
as a by-product of sulfate processing. [1]

You can barely call that biogas "burns extremely clean" with hydrogen sulfide
in them, can you?

[1]: [https://beerandbrewing.com/off-flavor-of-the-week-
sulfur/](https://beerandbrewing.com/off-flavor-of-the-week-sulfur/)

~~~
fastbeef
Sorry, bad choice words. The work is not done by a yeast so perhaps it’s not
technically fermenting. The work is done by a type of bacteria called archea.
As far as I know the only byproduct Upon burning biogas is CO2 and water
vapor.

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pjc50
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.

~~~
Theodores
...along with postmen on bicycles. The Royal Mail moved to hand pushed
trolleys for health and safety reasons.

I imagine how good that bike fleet would be today if they added electric
assistance. Sure bicycles might not be great for the final mile delivery of
someone's Amazon order of 50litres of mineral water but that is the point.

~~~
Symbiote
> The Royal Mail moved to hand pushed trolleys for health and safety reasons.

I think it's more likely that they moved to trolleys for cost, and gave the
excuse that it was "health and safety".

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ams6110
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.

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.

~~~
MisterTea
They destroy them for brand protection. See this comment:
[http://hankstruckforum.com/htforum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e65b...](http://hankstruckforum.com/htforum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e65be5c04719a6c095916ee9e50f0cf&topic=7583.msg58091#msg58091)

I once saw a heavy wrecker flatbed in the late 00's hauling three ex-ups
trucks with standard shift to the scrap yard. They were hastily painted white
with a roller to hide the UPS color and logo but you could still see the logo
through the shoddy paint job and brown patches along the edges.

~~~
kalcode
>They destroy them for brand protection. See this comment:

Comment has some sound reasoning why they feel that way.

Curious though, why do you post/take that commen on a forum that was copied
from an unnamed forum as fact?

~~~
RyJones
It's a (supposed) copy of a newspaper article.

I searched for the original publication and can't find it.

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gt_
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.

~~~
Spooky23
Rural delivery has always been private vehicles. Carriers with spouses who
have good jobs buy right hand drive Subaru’s. Everyone else drives some
hooptie mobile.

A lot of farm spouses used to do this gig. A moderately reliable car and a
mechanically inclination is a key to success — cars need brakes every 3-6
weeks.

USPS in general started buying more low bidder commercial vehicles because
their package volumes have increased and the bespoke, cheap mail trucks were
too small.

~~~
ams6110
Jeep used to sell a RHD Cherokee for delivery. I think, or maybe they were re-
imported. But I've seen more than a few rural carriers driving these. Older
Jeeps tend to rust out so there may not be many of them on the road these
days.

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nwah1
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.

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.

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.

~~~
pedroaraujo
Tesla seems to be the only company nowadays invested in developing an actually
good electric vehicles I never understood why the other car companies insist
in producing crappy EV products and yet so expensive for what they are worth.

I wouldn't recommend buying an EV that is not Tesla.

~~~
kwhitefoot
What's wrong with Nissan Leaf or Hyundai Ioniq?

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madengr
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?

~~~
sdfasdasfsf
Regen cancells some (most?) of "aggressive driving" leaving speed (i.e. wind
resistance) as the major killer of range. If they're deployed in thick urban
areas that might not be an issue.

~~~
sokoloff
With aggressive driving, it's very easy to move braking loads into the
friction brakes, making a 100% loss. Even when you cycle energy out of the
battery and back in via regen, there are losses (to heat).

Driving carefully in my LEAF, I can get 4.2-4.5 miles per kWh. Driving like an
ass, it's easy to get that figure down under 2.

~~~
athenot
Also get 4.2 miles/KWh here. Maybe they will build in some kind of feedback
for the trucks. The leaf has (had) the little trees that appear on the
dashboard; maybe UPS can track this and issue a token incentive (free meal,
bonus) at the end of the month if the delivery schedule is accomplished with
less energy.

~~~
greglindahl
With "one pedal" driving, the feedback mechanism is having to touch the brake
pedal or not.

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zaroth
Speaking of custom built electric delivery vehicles...

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).

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.

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?

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?

[1] - [https://nuro.ai/](https://nuro.ai/) [2] -
[https://www.starship.xyz/](https://www.starship.xyz/)

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computer22
They're also purchasing bike trailers in Germany... and will deliver by
e-bike.
[https://www.facebook.com/hinterhercom/photos/a.4964467670573...](https://www.facebook.com/hinterhercom/photos/a.496446767057350.98740.490939550941405/1615849118450437/?type=3&theater)

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aventrix
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.

Edit: Fixed typo.

~~~
asteli
Given that the cab is usually left completely open, and that the cargo area
isn't enclosed when it's in use, I'm not sure it makes sense to use aircon in
a delivery vehicle,

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nateguchi
Royal Mail (in the UK) is currently trialling an electric post van [1].

[1] [https://electrek.co/2017/08/23/royal-mail-new-electric-
auton...](https://electrek.co/2017/08/23/royal-mail-new-electric-autonomous-
truck-arrival/)

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reaperducer
FedEx has been using all-electric delivery vehicles in Chicago for at least
five years.

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pvsdileep
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

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ecommerceguy
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.

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xxpor
Hasn't UPS had all electric trucks in Manhattan for a while now?

~~~
ryanianian
Not everywhere....There's a diesel UPS truck parked and idling across the
street from me in midtown right now...

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yorby
Around here, UPS also use small vehicles similar to golf carts in the busy
seasons

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Feniks
They'll need this in Europe. Lots of cities are clamping down on pollution.

~~~
dx034
They already have that. In Germany, mail is delivered by custom-made electric
vehicles (streetScooter) and at least in London, UPS already uses electric
trucks for delivery.

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stevenAthompson
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.

