Tag Archives: electric trucks

This Really Isn’t A Surprise

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Yesterday MSN posted the following headline:

New York abandons electric snow plows

The article explains the reasons why:

This winter, New York won’t be using electric snow plows. Failure of vehicle tests has caused the local snow removal company to revert to diesel-powered vehicles.

The New York Department of Sanitation had three years ago, requested several Mack electric trucks. Primarily intended to clean streets and remove garbage, one of these trucks had been fitted with a snow plow as part of an experiment. This decision was unsurprising since in the “Big Apple”, it’s standard practice to fit garbage trucks with plows.

The experiment was not successful. The plow, dragging across the road and the snow buildup in front of it, created substantial resistance. Moreover, the plow required almost constant movement, eliminating the option for loading pauses. Consequently, the electric vehicle’s power supply was insufficient for the demands of a New York winter, known for its heavy snowfall, as reported by the website.

…The report further detailed that after nearly two hours, the electric plow had to discontinue the route for recharging. While the truck was efficient for garbage collection, its performance significantly dipped when facing snow removal tasks.

I have a problem with one of the statements above. A New York winter does not have really heavy snowfall. The average yearly New York City snowfall is 40 inches (source here). The average yearly snowfall for Boston is 52.7 inches (source here). The average yearly snowfall for Concord, New Hampshire is 67.7 inches and for Mount Washington, New Hampshire 281.8 inches (source here). If electric snow plows are too wimpy for New York City, imagine how useless they would be in New England.

Sometimes You Just Have To Do The Practical Thing

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On Wednesday, NewsMax reported that the United States Post Service (USPS) will be replacing its mail trucks with a large percentage of gasoline-powered mail trucks. The Biden administration had been pressuring the USPS to replace its aging fleet with electric trucks.

The article reports:

The U.S. Postal Service will start replacing its aging mail trucks with nearly all gasoline-powered vehicles built by Oshkosh Corp., despite pressure from the Biden administration to increase electric vehicle purchases.

The agency said Wednesday it cleared the final regulatory hurdle to placing orders for next-generation mail vehicles — and getting some of them on delivery routes next year — despite pushback from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The decision allows the Postal Service to proceed with placing the first order that will include at least 5,000 electric-powered vehicles, along with an undetermined number of gas-powered vehicles, Postal Service spokesperson Kim Frum said.

The article notes:

The USPS will get 165,000 new trucks over the next 10 years, with as much as 90% of the replacement vehicles powered by gasoline instead of electric-battery power.

Resisting pressure from Biden administration officials to increase electric vehicle purchases beyond its planned 10% baseline, the USPS rejected a bid from electric-vehicle manufacturer Workhorse Group Inc., and instead awarded the multibillion contract to Wisconsin military truck maker Oshkosh Corp.

“As we have reiterated throughout this process, our commitment to an electric fleet remains ambitious given the pressing vehicle and safety needs of our aging fleet as well as our fragile financial condition,” USPS Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy said in a statement. 

“As our financial position improves with the ongoing implementation of our 10-year plan, we will continue to pursue the acquisition of additional BEV [battery electric vehicles] as additional funding — from either internal or congressional sources — becomes available.”

The article concludes:

While the contract calls for at least 10% of the trucks to be electric vehicles, the agency has indicated its willingness to accelerate a transition to electric if it can be done in a way that is not “financially detrimental.”

Bloomberg reports that the USPS is unlikely to have the last word on the matter, however. Environmental groups are preparing to immediately challenge the move in federal court.

The Biden administration has limited authority over the Postal Service, but federal courts have determined that the USPS is still required to abide by the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates analysis of major policy decisions. Government leases sold to private companies have previously been invalidated by federal courts in the absence of that analysis.

The USPS “is playing a very high-stakes game” by “going against what the law requires,” Adrian Martinez, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, told Bloomberg prior to the announcement.

The lawsuits will simply force the financially struggling USPS to spend money defending itself. In the end, the financially struggling USPS will spend a large amount of money simply defending a practical decision.