Route delivery drivers(think Frito-Lay or Coke) run a prescribed route every day with nearly the same load and return to a garage every night. With this use case there are no "what if I have to drive to SD to uncle Marv's funeral tomorow" doubts. I'm interested to see if postal vehicles come out next...
They're expensive but I think this could work great. I'm pretty excited.
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/15/navistar-begins-commercial-production-of-estar-electric-cargo-va/
Now lets see if they live up to the hype and actually save businesses money in the real world.
Many in-city delivery vehicles used to be electric vehicles. They cost less to maintain than gas or diesel vehicles, at least in fleet service.
I think this is the way electrics need to come back to market. They're great for delivery vehicles that never have to travel out of town. When they can be charged off-peak, the company saves on "fuel" as well. Since these would be charged overnight, that's perfect.
I think an electric would be perfect for my wife's daily commute. She drives 80 miles round trip per day. She needs nothing bigger than a Smart Car to commute. I'd be willing to spend 15K on a dedicated electric vehicle for her commute.
It would be really cool if they could come up with an induction charger so no one would have to even plug it in at night. Just park and charge.
I think the concept is excellent. But the "incentives that come into play" equals your tax dollars buying someone else an electric vehicle. Since the fleet gets the savings let them pay the full price and give us our tax dollars back.
David
i also like the idea of evs that dont even have to be plugged in. when are we going to see diesel electric hybrids? diesel electric trains have been around forever, why cant they put a perkins in a prius? it just seems to make more sense because of the better mileage that diesels inherently get and the greater inherent torque that would make it easier to spin a dynamo to charge batteries.
Yah, but D-E trains were introduced long before the current era of eco/green/energy awareness.
Diesel torque is meaningless in a hybrid application, as the motor would be operated at an RPM corresponding to greatest efficiency for the conditions. For a given Diesel, the alternator ('dynamo') is then designed to operate most efficiently under those conditions.
Better than Diesel would be a micro-turbine/electric. Won't happen until they figure out how to make them cheaply in volume (think one piece ceramic turbine assemblies, used 'as-cast', with conformal foil bearings).
Carter
'Milk floats' in England have been electric powered for years. This one was built in 1947.
So the concept is proven. I think in this case pure EVs are a god thing and would cut in city exhaust emissions drastically. But I too think that 'incentives' are not a good thing. That's social engineering through tax policy, or the government interfering in something they shouldn't.
I don't think this concept is proven, as this is a proper Medium duty truck.
Jensenman wrote:
But I too think that 'incentives' are not a good thing. That's social engineering through tax policy, or the government interfering in something they shouldn't.
I'm cool with the tax incentives. They speed the adoption curve which in turn speeds the infrastructure needed to power these things.. which decreases the ROI..
I'm fine with social engineering as long as hey engineering in more people like me and less like you.. 
grimmelshanks wrote:
i also like the idea of evs that dont even have to be plugged in. when are we going to see diesel electric hybrids?
We've had them for about 7 years now. The latest ones we are testing use a small turbine to replace the piston engines we are using now. At least here in NY a lot of bigger companies like UPS, FedEx and Coca Cola are using diesel hybrid delivery trucks. We have looked at straight EVs but since most of our fleet is on the road 19+ hrs a day we don't have much time to recharge so being self propeled is must but for companies who only put them out for one shift it should work well.
ya ive seen the diesel hybrid buses in cali too, i was referring to personal vehicles. i heard about a vw tdi hybrid golf, but dont know that it is on the road yet. i think it would be cool.
grimmelshanks wrote:
ya ive seen the diesel hybrid buses in cali too, i was referring to personal vehicles. i heard about a vw tdi hybrid golf, but dont know that it is on the road yet. i think it would be cool.
That would be cool.
VW also did a commuter car with a 1 liter diesel/electric combo that got some ridiculous number like 250 mile per liter.
Minneapolis is using a bunch of hybrid buses these days as well. The one thing I do know about them is they're a lot quieter, which I appreciate when they drive by my house late at night.
In reply to stuart in mn:
We are going to fix that, blind people complain they can't hear them coming ofer their ipods. Our turbines are almost silent, the powertrain is quieter than the climate control. Unfortunatly they are also kinda gutless. Wherever they came from didn't have hills or people and they run out of steam with a full load.
