Im curious to see how they will handle my area. I hope they put a little consideration into the design for cold rural climates. Towns are no issue, but it gets tricky when you go out into the middle of nowhere on icy and deteriorated roads. There is a lack of rural carriers who use their own vehicles, so the existing drivers have to take on more and more, and drive further out. Love how these look tho, very friendly and european(?) in a way.
Hey American modern pick up truck heads. Notice how normal the bonnet is? Notice how you can SEE enough to not run people over? This is a true utility vehicle. Look how massive this bad boy is without being a death machine 👍
I have a mini cargo van as my everyday car that can move quite a bit of cargo, but I also bottom out if I go on a road that’s too bumpy.
The family truck has the clearance to go off the pavement.
A video which puts all the arguments better than I ever could: https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo
But the notion you can only have high clearance by making your hood so massive to the point you can’t see your child as you run them over in your own driveway, doesn’t make sense.
I’d strongly encourage you to give the video a go.
These trucks are now infesting my streets to (Australia) to a lesser degree. It’s an arms race that really needs to be stopped. I hope you consider some of the points made in the video.
but it doesn’t have enough sharp edges i feel like. what if i want to slice a kid in half?
You’re right. Literally unplayable
It’s also absolutely adorable 😂
(which is probably why they’d hate it 🙄)
Do they love them because they’re electric or because they finally got a new truck?
Not only do [the old trucks] only get 9 miles per gallon, they’re also noisy, smelly (I have to close my window every day when the mail truck comes around), have no air conditioning, hard to stand up in, and their only safety feature is mirrors that constantly fall out of alignment. AP also points out that nearly 100 LLVs caught fire last year – a common event when it comes to internal combustion vehicles.
Probably just because it has a/c
Instantaneous torque, I’m sure offers dramatic improvement over the previous ICE trucks.
Because they have Air Conditioning.
The thing they should have had for the last 40 years. With record breaking heat year after year it should be hazard pay without ac
Airbags, Anti lock Breaks, and hopefully leg room for non-midgets are probably bonuses too.
Dude, a break is something you take between shifts. A brake is something that slows you down. They’re not the same word.
You should be aware by now that that’s a pretty notable slur.
Now I wonder what this notable slur is
I would also like to know what the slur is
Actually, I didn’t know. Never heard it used in an offensive context before today. But I’ll edit my comment just the same.
That windshield looks very expensive to replace, pass it on to the taxpayers!
Lol, looks like they mixed the popemobile with a shoebox.
USPS is self-funded through postage and other services they provide. They did receive $50 billion from an emergency funding bill back in '22, but that also removed a hefty, arbitrary load: back in 2006, legislation was passed that forced the USPS into pre-fund retirement plans for the next 75 years. The emergency funding bill lifted that requirement and gave emergency funding to the USPS under the condition that the USPS adopt changes listed in the bill to further address funding shortfalls and become solvent again.
The people paying for USPS windshield replacements are effectively paying customers, much like how toll roads are supposed to fund their own upkeep by charging for its use.
It looks like a pretty typical windshield, except mounted close to vertical. Last I knew the USPS was running at a profit, except for the bribed politicians making it a law they need to fund pensions way into the future, that is.
They couldn’t use an actual photo instead of whatever that edited trash is lol
Judging by the AP report linked in that post-
It’s the same thing.
Look like a duck.
Does it quack like a duck?
There are car horns that sound like ducks, so maybe.
Why does it have a grille?
It is designed to be gas or electric. The few with gas engines will need the ventilation. Also it does have A/C. That is also why it has an engine bay despite being electric.
- Big batteries need cooling during charging.
- A/C units need to do heat exchange.
- Aesthetics
Aesthetics were clearly not a factor in the design of these vehicles.
Aesthetics
Especially apparent when you look at this abomination
That’s cool as fuck
Remember most people look at cars in the US and think “how the fuck can you drive such a ghastly monstrosity?”, and US manufacturers sell different models overseas that aren’t so pretentious and overblown
I’d take that yellow beastie over a childishly-designed Jeep any day
100 in 2024 is not a big launch. That is 3 second egg soft type of soft launch.
It’s not as fast as I’d like either, but it’s a lot better than the original USPS plan to replace them with diesel trucks.
I love it they look like ducks 🦆
They’re totally going to have to do that wrap.
I’d dig that so much 😁
Mmm… Toriyama cars.
Omg, I love them.
And if that is not a Trucky McTruckyface I dont know what is.
“The BEV variant has an estimated range of 70 mi (110 km) and a computed consumption of 1.34 kW⋅h/mi (25.2 mpg‑e). Although using the air conditioner was not expected to affect the range, using the heater was expected to reduce range by up to half. Based on the typical distance driven, it was assumed that only 20% of the battery state of charge would be used each day for most NGDVs; analysis of USPS mail carrier routes demonstrated the all-electric variant’s range could accommodate 95% of all routes.”
have to go elsewhere for vehicle specs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_NGDV?wprov=sfla1I’m actually shocked at the inefficiency of the electric powertrain tbh. An F-150 Lightning gets twice the distance per wh, a Model Y is quadruple. I’m not entirely sure if it’s just simply the size, but the lightning has a comparable gvwr. Just seems weird to me
I mean how many miles a day are most routes? Why order bigger specs if you don’t need them? I can’t imagine most carriers go more than 20 mi a day. I am curious though, I’m sure someone’s crunched the numbers on it.
I wonder how they calculated the range. If it’s representative of the real world drive cycle these will experience, the estimate might not be too far off. A postal route is constant low speed stop and go. Regen is much more effective at higher speeds, so they’re probably dumping most of their kenetic energy to hear via friction brakes. Suspect their drive cycle is going to be something like an endless cycle of 25 kw acceleration, rest, 25 kw acceleration, rest, etc.
I bet it’s this exactly. Cars get more efficient metrics on highway vs city start and stop. If the vehicle ONLY starts and stops it must be terrible, even if these have regen brakes.
So, I was curious and did some digging on the old LLV. Apparently it has a 13.5 gallon tank, and the vehicle is rated at 17mpg, but in actual use it gets more like 8-10mpg. So taking the worst case of 8, that’s about 100 mile range, so the NGDV isn’t really all that much worse. I’m guessing that’s going to cover the majority of routes, with the few outliers being covered by the gas powered versions.
Maybe these people are actually reporting the real world mileage with AC turned on and constant stops to deliver mail, as opposed to Ford who is financially incentivized to exaggerate mileage in optimal conditions.
Is this not the car from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs?
The first batch is possibly arriving in one city. (Pics or it didn’t happen, of course. AP article delivers.) Well, that’s nice… at least they actually exist?! (That’s a bit of a low bar.)
I’m worried it’s going to take another decade or three for the trucks to actually arrive in the numbers needed. Hopefully the USPS can survive our deplorable politics until then. They are invaluable for small businesses and keeping all mail couriers competitive.
They do look like ducks! 🦆
you can tell they didn’t have appearance in mind.
I’m glad your text was that big I almost couldn’t read it
…and they shouldn’t. It’s a government service vehicle, form and function over aesthetics.
They could’ve bought a fleet of <s3xy> EVs off the shelf but they would’n’t’ve been fit for service and more expensive per mile/year of use.
Thanks! I was actually cleaning up my comment (and fully RTFA) when I saw that AP link in middle there. Actual photos, great to see.
Thank god because I live in AZ and felt bad they had no AC. I even had one break down on the street as the engine overheated the driver didn’t know what to do. But it sucks the driver was worried about making deliveries on time. I told the driver not to drive that car cause it’s not safe
Given the fashion for giving vehicle models latinate masculine names like Camino and Montero, they missed a trick by not naming the postal vehicle the Tristero.
The one thing I wish they did with these things is make the roof out of solar panels.
These things are going to spend most days sitting outside in direct sunlight. They have nice big flat roofs which makes them pretty perfect to throw on solar panels. You likely would not need much charge infrastructure for the new vehicles and you’d have cut the ownership cost down even more significantly (especially in states with high electrical rates).
Regardless, these things are a no-brainer even without solar on all the vehicles. These are low speed vehicles with dedicated routes and loads of stop/go action. There’s not a more clear place to use an EV.
Solan panels on vehicles sounds like a great idea but the physics makes it a stupid gimmick.
You also have to clean them constantly in this application, I imagine.
I guess they could make some kind of windshield wiper for the solar panels.
The top of my car is rarely dirty.
How so? Is it that they aren’t efficient enough to be worth the materials it’s made from?
Power to weight ratio favors permanent fixed installations. A car roof is far too small to make a useful amount of energy.
Power to weight doesn’t matter as we are talking about using a solar panel instead of a roof. There’s no added weight. The car will already have inbuilt inverters so the only real weight add is the wiring. But also, this is a postal vehicle which will have large swings in weight anyways. A couple of extra pounds doesn’t make a difference here.
Further, this isn’t a car, which has a much smaller surface area. These things have about 10 square meters of flat roof. That’s a peak output of ~3kW. (realistically, probably closer to 1.5kW average throughout a day) which translates into 12kWh of charge in any given day. Roughly 10% of the battery capacity could be restored daily.
For large vehicles, like delivery vehicles and busses, the math on making the roof out solar panels instead of steel changes.
A roof only needs to be a thin piece of sheet metal, weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2lbs per square foot
Most solar panels are going to weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-4lbs per square foot. So is likely the panel would weigh 2-4 times as much as just a plain metal roof, plus possibly a metal roof under it and/or additional framing to attach the panels to, so power to weight does absolutely come into play.
That comes in at an additional 400lbs on a vehicle that weighs 6,670 lbs if you assume the maximal weight of the panels and the need for a metal roof anyways. That extra 6% weight just doesn’t matter. 6% losses range for 12% free charging seems like a worthy tradeoff to me. (and again, this is the maximal value).
6% weight increase doesn’t necessarily mean a 6% efficiency loss, it’s not a simple linear relationship like that. Depending on the power of the motor and a few other factors that 6% weight increase could mean a huge hit to efficiency.
That extra 6% weight just doesn’t matter.
LOL weight is incredibly important. Automakers would kill puppies for a 6% weight reduction.
It’s cheaper to put a light roof on a car, buy the same area of solar cells, set them up to charge a battery, and charge the car off that battery, than it is to buy a custom, toughened, solar cell the area of the roof.
Plus, you don’t have to haul around the extra weight at the worst location for weight in a vehicle.