[evilgenius]

I think they will get over that. I had relatives who could have waxed romantic over the smell of saddle soap. My aunt could vault onto a horse, like Roy Rogers. She would rather drive, most of the time. Yes, there will be reasons for ICE engines to remain. It will become that much harder to keep them on the road, once the mass market for spare parts and replacement parts becomes mostly a market composed of nostalgia seekers. It'll be weird to watch that happen. It will probably take a while. It makes you wonder what year they will eventually call the last great year for the ICE, the year after which people will mostly think about buying their first EV rather than their last ICE car. Seems like there is at least a fifteen year pan out for the middle, or most concentrated, part of the action. There must be at least ten years beyond that, when owning an ICE would still get you around reliably. It'll depend upon if the actual end comes from some political will, or if it is just allowed to happen. In the right places, they could still be driving ICE cars, or trucks, until the turn of the next Century.

[jedrider]

I think they will get over that. I had relatives who could have waxed romantic over the smell of saddle soap. My aunt could vault onto a horse, like Roy Rogers. She would rather drive, most of the time. Yes, there will be reasons for ICE engines to remain. It will become that much harder to keep them on the road, once the mass market for spare parts and replacement parts becomes mostly a market composed of nostalgia seekers. It'll be weird to watch that happen. It will probably take a while. It makes you wonder what year they will eventually call the last great year for the ICE, the year after which people will mostly think about buying their first EV rather than their last ICE car. Seems like there is at least a fifteen year pan out for the middle, or most concentrated, part of the action. There must be at least ten years beyond that, when owning an ICE would still get you around reliably. It'll depend upon if the actual end comes from some political will, or if it is just allowed to happen. In the right places, they could still be driving ICE cars, or trucks, until the turn of the next Century.

One can always go to Cuba for an ICE experience barring SLR, though.

[Plantagenet]

In the right places, they could still be driving ICE cars, or trucks, until the turn of the next Century.

You mean you think there will ICE vehicles out there until the year 2199?

My gosh ..... that fantasy is positively Neanderthal!


He parks his ICE car right in his cave!

Cheers!

[Tanada]

In the right places, they could still be driving ICE cars, or trucks, until the turn of the next Century.

You mean you think there will ICE vehicles out there until the year 2199?

My gosh ..... that fantasy is positively Neanderthal!


He parks his ICE car right in his cave!

Cheers!

What makes you think civilization 180 years from now will be using that level of technology? I think horses are more likely in 2199 than ICE or EV vehicles.

[Outcast_Searcher]

In the right places, they could still be driving ICE cars, or trucks, until the turn of the next Century.

You mean you think there will ICE vehicles out there until the year 2199?

My gosh ..... that fantasy is positively Neanderthal!


He parks his ICE car right in his cave!

Cheers!

What makes you think civilization 180 years from now will be using that level of technology? I think horses are more likely in 2199 than ICE or EV vehicles.

When horses are replacing either ICE's or EV's in coming years or decades, be sure and get back to us.

Meanwhile in the real world, EV's are getting more efficient and cheaper as a trend, and more green energy sources (both at private and utility scale) are being deployed.

BTW, since realistically, it's very hard to predict technology 2 or 3 decades in the future, it might be safe to predict 180 years in the future re being called on it, but the realistic confidence interval must be roughly zero. So why bother? To bluff the low IQ crowd? Or the endless fast crash doomer crowd?

[Tanada]

In the right places, they could still be driving ICE cars, or trucks, until the turn of the next Century.

You mean you think there will ICE vehicles out there until the year 2199?

My gosh ..... that fantasy is positively Neanderthal!


He parks his ICE car right in his cave!

Cheers!

What makes you think civilization 180 years from now will be using that level of technology? I think horses are more likely in 2199 than ICE or EV vehicles.

When horses are replacing either ICE's or EV's in coming years or decades, be sure and get back to us.

Meanwhile in the real world, EV's are getting more efficient and cheaper as a trend, and more green energy sources (both at private and utility scale) are being deployed.

BTW, since realistically, it's very hard to predict technology 2 or 3 decades in the future, it might be safe to predict 180 years in the future re being called on it, but the realistic confidence interval must be roughly zero. So why bother? To bluff the low IQ crowd? Or the endless fast crash doomer crowd?

Who me? I am just your friendly neighborhood Devil's Advocate. Me major course of study is also my one true love, history. If all my decades of learning history have taught me anything that thing is human nature stays the same no matter what the technology available. Humans have used domesticated animals for transportation for at least 3,000 years and personal automobiles for less than 150. So when someone predicts the future 180 years down the road it is easy as you might imagine to poke fun at such predictions by returning to the tried and true livestock transportation as a fallback position. Despite claims to the contrary civilization is not always in the direction of progress. Many many examples of crash back to more primitive conditions exist.

[AdamB]

Really? And what is a "left leaning" kid?

Greta Thunberg. Do you want me to go down the street and catalog every verifiable left leaning kid in the world to prove to you kids have clearly defined ideology (even if it's just what's been passed down to them by their family/community)?

I always thought of Greta's angle as environmentally aware in a particularly spirted manner. Never considered that a particularly "left" indicator.

I just feel like you are bending over backwards to deny reality here. It would be far easier to own up to the fact conservative and anti-environmentalist are synonymous.

Well, you and I share the same reality, and I deny none of it. We do however have different perspectives on motivations, belief systems, pre-dispositions towards belief systems, etc etc.

As a conservative environmentalist, of course I don't consider conservative and anti-environmentalist synonymous. Gun totin' good ol' boys despoiling the world with oil production who drive EVs and advocate de-growth just don't fit into pre-conceived stereotypes.

[JuanP]

I don't know about horses; horses require regular watering and feeding, and don't do well in droughts, of which I expect a lot of intense, long lasting ones. Horses are also edible and very easy to steal. Even fruit trees and veggies require defending, but horses even more! Will horses still exist 180 years from now? Who knows! But, I do agree that they are more likely to last longer than electric cars. I believe that, assuming we still exist as a species, we are more likely to be walking, running, swimming, paddling, and, if we are lucky, bicycling and sailing around, and probably not moving around much at all.

[vtsnowedin]

In 180 years we will probably have more then a few wars and other calamities and the human population may well decline either by choice or forced on us by a degraded environment. A world with only one or two billion humans would be a much different place but I very much doubt that we will digress back to transportation by livestock. I also expect transportation of humans and more importantly commodities will be more efficient then it is today with solar power providing the needed energy.
We humans ,or our descendants rather, may move about a lot less but we will still want our coffee shipped up from Brazil and our wine from Chile or France.

[aadbrd]

I always thought of Greta's angle as environmentally aware in a particularly spirted manner. Never considered that a particularly "left" indicator.

Greta's not left. OK, I can see this dialogue is going nowhere fast.

As a conservative environmentalist

An oxymoron along the lines of Jews for Jesus.

[mousepad]

As a conservative environmentalist

An oxymoron along the lines of Jews for Jesus.

I'm very conservative and I'm very concerned about the environment.
Why is that not possible?

[AdamB]

I always thought of Greta's angle as environmentally aware in a particularly spirted manner. Never considered that a particularly "left" indicator.

Greta's not left. OK, I can see this dialogue is going nowhere fast.

I don't do labels very well, left and right being quite amorphous, and specific to an individuals feelings as much as anything else.

As a conservative environmentalist

An oxymoron along the lines of Jews for Jesus.

And as true as the day is long. It is unfortunate that you presume that folks are so easily pigeonholed by those of small minds.

[AdamB]

As a conservative environmentalist

An oxymoron along the lines of Jews for Jesus.

I'm very conservative and I'm very concerned about the environment.
Why is that not possible?

Because the person making the claim has no ability to see outside their tiny perspective. The entire EV and "right" claim was a tell, but pretending something is an oxymoron that obviously isn't is a huge giveaway. Small minds are just small minds, not once has aardbrd been able to say anything about EVs other than they hate them and relate them to white racists or residents of state's they perhaps don't like. No understanding, no attempt to understand, no experience, just something they think is true converted to a firm reality...in their mind. Upon being confronted with the actual reality, well, it can't be them that are wrong, it must be reality. Spout nonsense, get religion involved, etc etc.

[aadbrd]

OK, back on topic again.

Rivian's delivery trucks are no longer vaporware. They are now just starting to be used in the field.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-s ... 27141.html

We'll see how they scale out.

[Outcast_Searcher]

OK, back on topic again.

Rivian's delivery trucks are no longer vaporware. They are now just starting to be used in the field.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-s ... 27141.html

We'll see how they scale out.

Great news. Glad to see these already being tested, with the program being announced in 2019. Hopefully virtually all local-route delivery vans could be electric (except, perhaps where it gets too cold, like maybe northern Alaska) and these could show the way.

The article mentioned the vans are being tested by Amazon employees who are "specially trained to operate the electric vehicles".

Um, how much training can be required? Know where the charging points are. Plan far enough ahead not to run out of charge. Aside from that, they should be essentially just delivery vans.

Or am I missing something fundamental, given I never drove a van or any delivery vehicle for a living?

I'm glad to see Amazon doing this but don't want to give Bezos extra points for empty marketing BS.

[Tanada]

OK, back on topic again.

Rivian's delivery trucks are no longer vaporware. They are now just starting to be used in the field.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-s ... 27141.html

We'll see how they scale out.

Great news. Glad to see these already being tested, with the program being announced in 2019. Hopefully virtually all local-route delivery vans could be electric (except, perhaps where it gets too cold, like maybe northern Alaska) and these could show the way.

The article mentioned the vans are being tested by Amazon employees who are "specially trained to operate the electric vehicles".

Um, how much training can be required? Know where the charging points are. Plan far enough ahead not to run out of charge. Aside from that, they should be essentially just delivery vans.

Or am I missing something fundamental, given I never drove a van or any delivery vehicle for a living?

I'm glad to see Amazon doing this but don't want to give Bezos extra points for empty marketing BS.

Once upon a time as part of my job I drove dump trucks, and I have also driven U-Haul panel vans. I have not driven the electric version of either but I can tell you that the moment of inertia of a vehicle shifts vastly depending on the load and its position within the vehicle. A properly designed electric panel van with the batteries in the floor should be much more stable because it has so much weight low in the frame, which will give a new driver a false sense of confidence. The issue is that same low center of gravity based upon weight mean the vehicle will not change direction as smoothly nor stop as quickly, both of which are issues driving in crowded streets changing lanes and in stopping short due to the person in front of you slamming on the brakes instead of beating the yellow light. It also means you have to keep a better eye out for kids or animals that might dart out in front of the vehicle in order to hard stop to avoid hurting them if at all possible. I can tell you from bitter experience changing lanes with a fully loaded dump truck is a vastly different experience than when the truck is empty or lightly loaded. I think a bit of practice training for new electric van drivers would be a VERY good idea. It shouldn't take more than a few hours of practice to get used to the differences, but reflexes will need longer to learn the differences.

[aadbrd]

Learning to employ regenerative braking effectively would be key for a heavy stop-start vehicle, especially in hilly terrain (like San Francisco). Could result in big differences in observed range which would be critical if the pack is only sized large enough to provide just a small buffer above what they think would be needed for a typical daily route. Just speculating but I have to imagine they don't want to spend the money on a pack that provides a huge cushion as the overhead on that would be painful with a large fleet. Battery tech being what it is I don't even know how feasible it would be to give such heavy and boxy vehicles a huge cushion anyway. So I would think all vehicles would return back with a very low state of charge.

[vtsnowedin]

A delivery vehicle's day involves a lot of stops and very few long uninterrupted drives. With that the average speed (or distance covered) is probably less then 35 miles per hour. So a ten hour shift would need about 350 miles of range and in dense urban areas with lots of stoplights much less. A truck's running gear is not exactly a light weight proposition especially if it is a diesel so your battery powered replacement might not be much heavier if at all.
The regenerative braking system does need to work smoothly with just normal inputs from the operator pressing the brake pedal. I doubt if that will be a problem. Of course with GPS and onboard computing the van will know what road it is on and what grade up or down lies ahead so could optimize energy conservation. And the truck will know when it has to head back to the barn for a recharge.
To sum up I think all those"problems" with EV delivery vehicles will be overcome in short order.

[mousepad]

Learning to employ regenerative braking effectively would be key for a heavy stop-start vehicle,.

Not at all. Key is a clever computer. You press the brake pedal and the computer knows if it should use regenerative braking or traditional braking.

[AdamB]

Learning to employ regenerative braking effectively would be key for a heavy stop-start vehicle,.

Not at all. Key is a clever computer. You press the brake pedal and the computer knows if it should use regenerative braking or traditional braking.

That's how mine both work. Those who only imagine things about how EVs work or their conservative and environmentally friendly drivers make these kinds of easy mistakes.