Comments on: Green News: Electric Vehicles Gone Postal http://www.gsjournal.com/2009/11/green-news-electric-vehicles-gone-postal/ Leading Source on Green Energy & Business News Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:51:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Ed Fong http://www.gsjournal.com/2009/11/green-news-electric-vehicles-gone-postal/comment-page-1/#comment-89 Ed Fong Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:06:16 +0000 http://www.gsjournal.com/?p=514#comment-89 this has been done - we (the USPS) had a fleet of 500 Electric LLVs back in 2000-2003 provided through a contract/partnership with Ford Motor Company (their THINK group and Baker Frod Dealership); I believe subsidies were provided by several regulators (SCAQMD and BAAQMD come to mind) and electric power utilities (PG&E, SoCAL Edison. There were also 13 Chrysler EPICs (BEV minivans) in our California fleet. There were purchase options for an additional 5,500 more of these ELLVs. However, the program was canceled for, in my opinion, mysterious reasons...this was the same timeframe that all manufacturers who had test/demonstration EV programs (such as the GM EV-1, Ford Electric Rangers, etc) were cancelled and the vehicles crushed and/or destroyed (the subject of the documentory film "Who Killed The Electric Car?")...not sure if the 500 ELLVs were destroyed. The ELLV was the perfect vehicle for our application (mail delivery) where the length of an average route at the time was about 15 miles...a fully charged ELLV with lead-acid battery pack (not the most current technology) had a range of 40 miles. Upon return from the delivery route, ELLVs were plugged-in to the on-site chargers which were programmed to charge off-peak. There was an issue witht the battery packs and the high replacement cost, but the fleet would have been a perfect testbed for the evolving battery technologies...would be nice to find out if those first purpose-built ELLVs are in a mothball fleet somewhere and could be re-activated as part of this "new" "green" campaign.... this has been done – we (the USPS) had a fleet of 500 Electric LLVs back in 2000-2003 provided through a contract/partnership with Ford Motor Company (their THINK group and Baker Frod Dealership); I believe subsidies were provided by several regulators (SCAQMD and BAAQMD come to mind) and electric power utilities (PG&E, SoCAL Edison. There were also 13 Chrysler EPICs (BEV minivans) in our California fleet. There were purchase options for an additional 5,500 more of these ELLVs. However, the program was canceled for, in my opinion, mysterious reasons…this was the same timeframe that all manufacturers who had test/demonstration EV programs (such as the GM EV-1, Ford Electric Rangers, etc) were cancelled and the vehicles crushed and/or destroyed (the subject of the documentory film “Who Killed The Electric Car?”)…not sure if the 500 ELLVs were destroyed.

The ELLV was the perfect vehicle for our application (mail delivery) where the length of an average route at the time was about 15 miles…a fully charged ELLV with lead-acid battery pack (not the most current technology) had a range of 40 miles. Upon return from the delivery route, ELLVs were plugged-in to the on-site chargers which were programmed to charge off-peak.

There was an issue witht the battery packs and the high replacement cost, but the fleet would have been a perfect testbed for the evolving battery technologies…would be nice to find out if those first purpose-built ELLVs are in a mothball fleet somewhere and could be re-activated as part of this “new” “green” campaign….

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