What Happened After Amazon Electrified Its Delivery Fleet? - Slashdot

Posted by EditorDavid

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  This should have been done 40 years ago when the Science was solid. Instead it looks like collectively, the human race wants to find out how bad climate change is really going to be. Not smart, but what else is new.

  • • • Re:

        I don't have an opinion one way or another but no matter the topic if it's from a scientific journal always read the methodology. If it's from a mainstream media source try to forget what you read and always seek out the original scientific article

      • Re:

        India's climate is changing. Its getting better. Earlier May and June used to be horribly hot. Now due to the warmer waters of the Med North India is getting a lot more Western Disturbances which create rain and keep the temps in check. Warmer Indian ocean means stronger monsoons and Monsoons are arriving almost 15 days early. This makes a difference. The last 15 days of summer are when temps hit 45-50 C. If rains arrive 15 days earlier it makes a huge difference in the number of sunstroke victims. Just bec

      • Re:

        Any "study" claiming that they can predict long-term impacts of climate change is speculative at best. Not only such studies in normal circumstances are highly unreliable, doubly so for the long-term forecasts. Now compound that uncertainty with model-based climate predictions and all that is left is uncertainty.
        
        TL;DR Long term GDP forecast studies are BS, doubly so when attempting to account for climate change.

• 3 megawatts to power chargers for a warehouse? Jesus! Where is all this power coming from?

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    That number seems wrong. A typical level-2 charger will run at or below 7kW. So unless they're putting in 400 or more, then that 3MW includes a lot of other power usage. And for a fleet, like this, they could easily install a thousand chargers that are configured to share power, so they would charge slower when all are in use, but it would still work fine: Some vehicles would get done early and start charging first, and as the spaces fill up, the charging rate would slow, but as those that need less fini

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    In Maple Valley most of it from Grand Coulee Dam and from the reduction of power usage by more efficient appliances and heating/cooling of buildings, although a goodly amount is from their own generation. IIRC Amazon is the largest non-utility generator of renewable energy there is, with wind farms scattered about and solar installations on the roof of many (perhaps most now) of their million+ square foot fulfillment centers.

  • • Re:

      Which is strange because the "coal plant next door" is more than likely decommissioned. The share of electricity generated by coal in the US is about 16% right now annual average, down from roughly 44% just 15 years ago.

      Guess it's time to get a new snarky comment!
      =Smidge=

      • Re:

        You think it can't happen?

        https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]

        • Re:

          Check the article date, the crypto company already left to set up shop next to wind farm:

          As crypto company departs Hardin, what's next for the communities it leaves behind? [ypradio.org]

          And even this article is old, so while this will happen (coal plant owners aren't super keen to just shutter plants, they will hold on as long as possible) it will become rarer and rarer.

        • Re:

          All I see there is a reason to regulate crypto bullshit, if not ban it entirely. Can't afford to be wasting that much energy on fraud.

          In any case; No, "it" can't happen... assuming by "it" you mean a return to coal as the dominant power source in the US. That ship has sailed.
          =Smidge=

      • Re: Follow the money

        Or sold off to the AI operators [bloomberg.com]. I guess the poor crypto miners will just have to live off of hand-outs.

    • Re:

      That's fine. It's still putting out less pollution than the delivery vehicles they replaced. And it means as they switch to greener power, they improve their fleet without having to replace the vehicles.

• This is going to be a long thread of Anti-EV zealots, especially those that didn't read the original article.

  The biggest problem they are facing is that there's a lot of vehicles that aren't delivered yet, and they fight for the charging spots, while in some areas there are plenty.

  Also, having a fleet of 100.000+ EV's is not easy to manage both charge-time wise and available spots. Amazon has insisted that the power delivered must be from solar power and the power company has to guarantee that as well.

  Personally I think they could solve it by doing what IKEA did, they went entirely Solar for all their warehouses some years ago, and produced way more power than they use themselves. But Amazon purchases their solar electricity for now, mostly.

  They also have an issue with EV's not being delivered to them in a timely matter, afaik - these vehicles (according to the article) are special built for Amazon, and only 13K of them in one area has been delivered so far, so it's not a clear cut case for them.

  TL:DR; your personal or peoples preferences for EV's has nothing to do with your use case for a personal EV or whether you need one or not, this is a HUGE scale that has various issues such as production, delivery, issues with those agreements on a large scale.

  Ev's may or may not fit your daily routines or economy, personally I don't think anyone should be forced to buy an EV, I have one myself, but it fits my lifestyle, travel distance, and I got it cheap (20K) so for me it's great. But it's not fun for people who have a long distance to travel to work, few charging spots, can't charge at home and have to pay 60K and upwards for one, that's not good at all.

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    IIRC the actual ask from Amazon is that the power be from renewable sources, not necessarily solar.

    Interestingly Rivian probably wouldn't exist without Amazon. They were having trouble getting financing to build their factories, Tesla was having issues with quality at the time and being utterly unimaginative and risk-adverse the banks wanted nothing to do with a new startup needing hundreds of millions of dollars to build a factory. Then Amazon came along and contracted to buy 100,000 delivery vehicles fr

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    As with many early adopter issues, EV chargers weren't put in for private industry especially well. The construction methods and designs didn't really get very refined until recently. Also, for fleet applications, the Tesla/NACS port would have been a big win-- charging at 48A x 277V rather than 40A x 208V dramatically reduces charging time and cost of construction. I know a lot of desing engineers also short changed chargers when installing them ~10 years ago-- designing for an average of 30A was common

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      If you take your private car to an airport, you most likely started from home, where your car is constantly kept at 100% charge. With EVs you can forget gas stations in your daily routine, and that's so much time you get back for your life. You only need to charge outside home or work if you are in long interstate travels. For long travels you might indeed consider charging an EV can take longer; but time isn't such a big problem by definition if you decided for a road trip rather than air travel. There cer

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        My issue is the cost to install the charger at home. My electrical box is full and in a finished room. We are talking a lot of work just to charge my car faster than a 110 can.

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      EVs don't scale well. At a gas station if you have two people in front of you, you wait 20 minutes.

      Fleet logistics are not the same as zillions of independent vehicle owners. In case you had forgotten, the article is about Amazon vehicles, charging up at Amazon warehouses. What the hell does the corner gas station have to do with that?

    • Re:

      EVs don't scale well. At a gas station if you have two people in front of you, you wait 20 minutes.

      My home scales quite well, and there are zero people in front of me for both the garaged space and the driveway outside of it.

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      The difference is that a gas station requires a massive capital investment to build. An EV charging stand just needs the same electricity as any other business. In the long term it might be efficient for the market to produce an excess of charging stations.

      • Re: Read the original article

        Wait! What? You must have some real slow pokes using your gas pumps. It's about 5 minutes to fill my truck. Which includes the time to swipe my credit card and request a receipt. For you EV enthusiasts, that's a charge rate of about 3000 mph (Mach 4).

• I've watched YouTube videos about them and they have an excellent industrial design that fits their purpose. Just the way the driver sits, the visibility, the way packages are stored, the overall capacity. Everything is so well thought out. I wonder if Rivian has rights to sell the same basic vehicle to other courier firms because I could see it being a very profitable side business for them.

  • Re:

    It looks like a delivery van?

    UPS also have heavily customised vans, as I believe do Royal Mail. Most delivery vans have some sort of shelving or box storage inside. The major grocery delivery companies have quite heavily customisedstorage and refridgeration systems in their delivery vans.

    Thought I did see a very dented Prime van yesterday--dented on the upper slope at the front like it crashed into a low obstacle--with a disorganised jumble of boxes in the back.

    • Re:

      The Rivian vans for Amazon are at the next level in terms of ergonomics for driver comfort. Go watch a YouTube video on it. What I was disappointed about is that they didn't think to fit a toilet. Especially during the pandemic, there were a lot of complaints about delivery drivers struggling to find toilet facilities. This is basically a solved problem as motor homes have had toilets for decades. Put in some pump-out facilities at the depots and you are sorted. Before anyone says it would need to be acces

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        Yeah, a simple marine head like you'd find in any boat past the day sailor stage. It's probably not the worst idea in the world. A single human isn't going to require much waste storage - a 5L tank ought to be more than enough for a full shift.

        I imagine the issue is that it would take up space that could be occupied by half a cubic meter of packages instead, and drivers obviously do manage to get through their days without an in-truck bathroom now.

        • Re:

          There are logistics issues to doing it for sure, but if it improves driver performance it might be worth it. Most of the volume required can be freed up after a few deliveries.

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      Go and watch Doug DeMuro's video about it. It's not just a delivery van, it's fantastically well thought out electric van terms of efficiency, ergonomics, safety, visibility, route planning and driver comfort. Amazon probably do have crappy regular vans in their fleet spray (as well as contractors) painted with their livery. This is an entirely separate thing to those. And as you say other couriers have similar needs which is why I think if Rivian has rights to the design there would be a lot of companies v

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    They could sell the thing, since it's their design (I'd want one for an RV), but they're contractually committed to delivering the first 100,000 to Amazon with options for more. That contract was what got them their financing to build the factory in the first place, so I imagine they're pretty intent on carrying it out.

• Can Amazon's energy providers guarantee that they're providing 100% capitalist electricity & that none of it is socialist electricity fed into the grid from hippie house solar panels? Contaminated electricity could destroy our freedom! Why is nobody talking about this?!
• Does it offset carbon from blasting off into space every other day?
  Perhaps Blue Origin isn't Amazon, but the Origin won't be blue much longer when 1 rocket launch wipes out any gains made on the ground.

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    A rocket launch emits about the same amount of CO2 as a trans-pacific jet flight.

    Amazon triggers a *lot* more trans-pacific jet flights than Kuiper ever will trigger rocket launches.

• This just in: Investing can be expensive! News at 11!

• Level 2 chargers are glorified power cords, they cost nothing to make. Level 2 charging is implemented in the vehicle, not the "charger".

  Any time you see the claim that BEVs are not viable because of the cost of (largely level 2) charging infrastructure, you know you are dealing with bad faith argument. The oil companies, and their political cohorts, would have you believe that we cannot afford electric vehicles because of the cost of the power cords to plug them in. It's bullshit, it's also pervasive and effective because people are ignorant. Electrical demand will not skyrocket, level 2 is not expensive. Lifestyles and living arrangements need to adjust. The fact that 40% of the population cannot access L2 at their homes is the bigger problem.

  Level 3 is another matter, but that's not even what's discussed here. I'm not sure I'm even a BEV supporter, I think synthetic fuels and hydrogen may be better approaches, but charging infrastructure is just a big lie and $1000 home L2 cables are a cash grab, not even Tesla charges money like that.

  It's funny how we can construct buildings wired to the hilt with electrical power and it's perfectly affordable, yet we want to add some of that power to the parking garage and it crashes the economy. Hmmm, wonder who came up with that?

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    Yup, bought in bulk, a level 2 charger should be under $300. But that goes up here because you need devices that will stand up to a degree of abuse, and you need them networked to share power to manage consumption across the entire fleet at the location (which also reduces the need to upgrade the power from the utility). I could easily see that running to between $500 and $1000, even given that Amazon is likely buying these by the thousand. But that's still way less than the numbers cited in the summary.

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    The wall connectors (proper term) do include safety and communications equipment, but the hardware is heavily commoditized. The site infrastructure was what was expensive. Depending on how it was done, each pair of "chargers" needed its own conduit from the panel, and code issues mean that once you have over about 20 conduits you need to space them into multiple conduits. I worked on a project with 100 chargers, and the amount of trenching done was...sub optimal. You also end up needing to deal with st

• As someone in logistics, I'm more interested in the actual performance.

  Amazon's operations run at scale that is usefully simulative of real delivery-truck operations, more telling than the performative 'tech demonstrations' of other companies (eg a truck or two that they trot out for pictures when the Sustainability C-suite is giving a speech) where it's impossible to discern if the trucks are providing a value/performance that means EVs are *actually* interesting for businesses.

  The comments to the OP refer

• I would love to see Rivian partner with someone like Winnebago and put out a small RV based on the same design. It would need a larger battery, but otherwise the basic platform would be great for a small RV.

• 17,000 Level 2 chargers @ $500 each is $8.5 million plus $1000 each for wires, etc. is $25.5 million.
  Seems like Bloomberg has a math problem... or perhaps an agenda against EVs when they estimate 2x or 3x times that (or 6x for a really scary number).
  Also, no mention of the reduction in fuel costs. (EVs cost about 75% less to fuel and have much lower maintenance costs)

• Temu is not spending billions on electric vehicles and charging stations. Temu will eat Amazon's lunch, at least until Congress bans them.

• • Why not let people, and companies, vote their wallets? The savings in EVs isn't in fuel cost so much as it is in maintenance cost. No oil changes, tune-ups, radiator, fuel pumps, oil pumps, fan belts, spark plugs and wires, etc, etc. In the 18,000 miles I've owned my EV, I've rotated the tires twice and changed out the windshield wiper blades once. What does 6 oil changes (one every 3000 miles) cost you?

    Nobody is going to take away your precious gas buggy. The day is coming very soon when EVs will cost less than gas buggies and you're going to complain about that too.

    • In the UK, electricity is on average about 1/5th the cost of petrol per mile.

      TFA is very short sighted though. Clearly EVs are the future and the savings will be every year, for the foreseeable future. Do they wring their hands when Amazon builds a warehouse that is going to last decades?

      • Re:

        In North America an EV is on average 50% more than its ICE counterpart. Also, used ICE vehicles are plentiful; you can buy a good one for $7K or so. Interest rates are high. No one is thinking down the road, they're thinking about the loan payments.

        • Amazon isn't buying used trucks. It buys bespoke designs direct from the manufacturer.

          Given they are a relatively low volume product (by consumer vehicle standards) they are probably not expecting them to be particularly cheap, regardless of what drivetrain they have.

          As a rational actor with plenty of cash on hand, they will be looking at Total Cost of Ownership, not buy price. EVs are cheaper over the lifetime of the vehicle.

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            I get an amazon package every day. I've never seen an amazon branded truck. I see rental trucks that look like they came from war zones.

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              The folks doing the deliveries are contractors, it seems to be a pretty good deal for them. Amazon will subsidize their vehicle purchase, and give them access to AWS-based tools for things like HR, accounting, route management, and the like. Whether the contractors take them up on the subsidies and such is entirely up to them, as long as stuff gets delivered correctly. It sounds like the contractor in your area prefers to buy used vehicles and beat the crap out of them, good in the short run but probably

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              I get an amazon package every day. I've never seen an amazon branded truck.

              I get amazon package deliveries a couple of times a week. Sometimes they are Amazon-branded trucks, sometimes not. Infrequently the delivery vehicle is a car.

          • Re:

            And the operational costs are far more predictable into the future, as electric costs do not vary day-by-day to the end ratepayer for the most part, where liquid fuel prices do.

            Watch how the TCO measures change by liquid fuel going up by $0.50/gal because of any of the reasons it does all the time.

            • Re:

              Maybe it's different in the US, but in the UK large consumers of electricity pay a variable rate based on demand. It's fairly predictable over a period of 48 hours, but it does vary. It's only retail customers that get a fixed rate, although with a tiny bit of effort you can save a lot of money by opting out of that.

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                Commercial rates do vary, but they vary in predictable ways. And the rate schedule isn't going to change without a public utility commission having a public comment period, public hearings, etc. unlike 100% privatized and unregulated liquid hydrocarbon markets.

                And the upswing in variance usually coincides with particular hours of the day that are easy to offset, especially if you have a multi-acre flat roof with 100% sun exposure, and an appetite for installing battery storage on-site. And the lowest pric

          • • I believe that Rivian is using Chinese LFP batteries, which are the best. They last a long time, especially when you only ever AC charge them (what TFA calls "level 2").

              The trucks are stationary while loading anyway, but I imagine the main charging will be done overnight when deliveries are not being made anyway. Amazon will likely generate a lot of the electricity itself, e.g. via solar on the building rooftops. It's the cheapest way, followed by overnight cheap electricity due to low demand.

              Rapid charging on motorways is already as expensive as petrol in parts of Europe, but most people charge at home or at work where it is much cheaper (standard domestic/commercial rates).

              The cost to you is based on demand. Can you invest in generation? In the UK, as well as getting your own solar, you can buy a share in a wind farm, and then get a return from all the electricity it generates. You can also get a battery or car that supports V2G and sell energy back to the grid at peak times.

              I know it's annoying but you are externalising some of your costs at the moment, so you can't expect to be subsidised forever. It's cheaper if you become part of the solution, but unfortunately some people can't afford the up-front costs. We should address that, but in the US you don't like socialism so I hope you have the cash.

            • by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Monday April 22, 2024 @08:04AM (#64413812)

              EV batteries last a hell of a long time, especially LFP batteries. The usual rule of thumb is that an upper end is 10% degradation after 100,000 miles, but this is measured based on older Teslas. Newer batteries are likely to be even better.

              Regarding downtime for charging, it doesn't need to be that much. Commercial vehicles that really do need to be in motion close to 24 hours a day (a minority, I imagine) can just be fast charged using DC chargers (the kind you see on the highway); these can restore 200 miles of range in 15-20 minutes on many cars. Others will likely be charged using plain old 240V AC while loading/idle.

              It turns out gasoline is *heavily* subsidized. We subsidize its use by allowing people to burn it and create pollution without compensating the rest of us, and we further subsidize it by all of the geopolitical effort put into securing its supply (all the vast sums of money spent giving a shit about tinpot dictatorships in the Middle East).

              Even with all those subsidies, EV charging is far cheaper than gasoline -- without any subsidies, since a vast majority of EV charging is done with ordinary home electricity and the power company doesn't even know. (They just know someone's drawing power; they have no idea if someone is charging a car or cooking dinner.) Rates for DC fast charging (what Tesla calls "superchargers") are higher, but most folks don't use it much.

            • Re:

              Goalpost moving detected!

              Yes, with Amazon famously delivering packages at 3am, right?

              Since when does Amazon need these vans to be on the road 24/7?

              Why can't they be charged while delivery drivers aren't delivering packages because the recipients and drivers are all asleep?

            • Re:

              It really won't. We already know how battery degradation works. Unless they bought trucks with too-small batteries to begin with, the trucks will wear out before battery capacity drops enough to require replacement.

        • Re: do not want

          EV growth helps improve scale economics. Grid capacity another constraint that will need investments. Amazon also sees a business opportunity like it did with AWS. Amazon gains experience and can adapt its business energy more flexibility as market evolves.

          • • Re:

              Do you know how long it takes, on average, for a delivery van to get filled with stuff to deliver? HVDC chargers already transfer at least 200mi of range in ~20 minutes on EVs that are several years old.

              Why can't the vans be charged at the loading dock while they're loading them?

              Why can't the vans be charged overnight when nobody is delivering packages?

              Why is it so hard for you to think that Amazon may have actually tested some of this before signing multi-million dollar purchase agreements, to see if it wa

        • Re:

          >> an EV is on average 50% more than its ICE counterpart

          You can get a Tesla Model Y for about $38k after incentives in the States, a Honda CRV is about $32k.

      • Re:

        Did you actually read the article? Your takeaway should be that the parts of Amazons business that are impossible to make green include electronics manufacturing as well as air and sea freight. Even long haul trucking is currently diesel dependent. The last mile delivery sound like they are on track, but the reality is its not going to move their needle a lot because of the other parts of the business still polluting. Even if the last mile service was somehow 100% EV, it would not move the needle very much

        • Re:

          Why would air and sea freight be impossible to make green? We have alternative fuels like hydrogen and (for boats) wind. And remember that it is net zero, so even if they emit some CO2 it's okay as long as the same amount is captured somewhere else.

          Are you saying it's impossible *today*? Well yes, it is, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be doing everything they can to get there. And just because delivery vehicles is a relatively small part of the total, doesn't mean it isn't significant. Aside from anyt

        • Re:

          Sea shipping has it's problems for sure but overall it's like 3% of global emissions and the per-product carbon expenditure to ship something in a container across the ocean is pretty low on list, maybe the lowest.

          Of the 20% of carbon transport emits 3/4 is just road's and that's a problem with an obvious solution we already have and are deploying, just a matter of scale now.

          Container ships are a bigger problem to crack but a lower priority.

          I would have to see something that pointed out the total emissions

      • Re:

        In the UK, electricity is on average about 1/5th the cost of petrol per mile.

        In California, PG&E raised prices so high that a model 3 (~250wh/mi, $.35/kWH = 9Â/mi) is in the same ballpark per-mile to a Prius (55mpg, $5/gal = 9Â/mi).

        And that's assuming you only charge at home overnight on the lowest off-peak rate and don't get dinged too much from the exorbitant ($.66/kWH) peak rate.

        Makes a ton of sense in the rest of the country though. So much for promoting a clean environment:-(

        • Re:

          Might be worth looking at variable tariffs. For March-May the demand for electricity generation goes to zero in California on a regular basis, and even more often over the summer. While you might not pay $0 for it, the price should go way down.

          Or get some solar panels and charge from those. Unfortunately it's the people who can't afford such things or shift their demand to cheaper times that end up paying the most as well, exacerbating inequality.

          • Re:

            That's *with* time-of-use metering. I'm pretty sure the price for EV metering has roughly tripled in the last five years. And only about 11 to 16 cents of that is the actual generation cost. The rest of it is profit for PG&E. The only way to get reasonably priced power in California is to build your own power plant, which will bring your price down to about 17 cents per kWh, and even that isn't much below the price of gasoline.

            For a state that's desperate to push electrification, the state's utility

      • • Re:

          Amazon can afford solar panels and batteries, so their electricity unit cost is going to be extremely low. Even when they need to pull from the grid, they can do it overnight when prices are lowest.

          EVs cost a lot less than fossils to maintain. No engine oil or filters, no exhaust system, no spark plugs, no fuel pump or injectors, no water pump, no variable gearbox (on most), even the brakes hardly get used thanks to regen. For commercial operators with fleets of vehicles, those savings add up fast. You can

          • Re:

            This is not a valid argument of EV economic feasibility. Additionally, your reflexive urge to spend other people's money is hilarious.

            They do not. [autoevolution.com]

            But not in a way you think. [www.cbc.ca]

            • Re:

              Investing now to save money over the next decade or two is the logical thing for any corporation looking beyond the next quarter.

    • Re:

      What does 6 oil changes (one every 3000 miles) cost you?

      It's an oil change every 7,500 miles. Your figure is for more extreme conditions/usage.

      EVs wear out tires two to three times faster [thedrive.com] than an ICE vehicle, and those tires cost more.

      Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss

      • Re:

        If this were a concern to everyone then Americans wouldn't drive the cars they do. I upgraded to an EV recently. The car was 230kg heavier than my old car. What is that total weight? 1102lbs (500kg) less than the average American car weight.

        • Re: do not want

          That's only 1.4 mother-in-laws.

      • The thing about wearing out tires is mostly false.

        EV's are capable of wearing out tires faster because they are capable of very high acceleration -- without the driver really being aware of just how fast they're accelerating, because there's no roaring engine.

        It turns out if you do this all the time, you wear out tires. If you don't, you mostly don't.

        There is slightly higher wear because EV's are slightly heavier. But people don't seem to care that much about this -- look at all the giant SUV's out there that people have chosen to drive! Making a sane comparison (standard sedan vs. standard sedan), a Camry is 3350 or 3500 pounds and a Model 3 is 3850-4000 pounds (higher figures are for AWD). EV's weigh more but not that much more.

        But the Model 3 will do zero to 60 in 4 seconds or something silly. If you do that all the time -- yeah, you're going to burn up tires. So don't do that.

      • Re:

        Mine (BMW) is 10k miles and I never hit that a year so I just get it done once a year. The first 3 years were included in the price and for an additional $225 I can cover the next 3 years. That's about the time I'll want a new car. Everyone acts like this shit is cost prohibitive.

      • Re:

        "EVs wear out tires two to three times faster [thedrive.com] than an ICE vehicle, and those tires cost more."

        That is a lie, and that reference is misleading, dishonest and cites only one anecdote.

      • Re:

        Tire costs:
        Michelin Pilot Sport 4S in a proper fitting for a Tesla Model 3 AWD [235/40ZR19 (96Y) XL] from Tire Rack: $329 per tire
        Michelin Pilot Super Sport in a proper fitting for an Audi A4 Quattro [245/35ZR19 (93Y) XL] from Tire Rack: $321.99 per tire

        Stop spreading FUD.

    • Re:

      Oh it's fuel savings too. US prices might differ but in Europe it costs about 1/2 to 1/3 to charge an electric vehicle on a night rate as to fill it with petrol / diesel at the pump. I'm sure that's true for businesses too, especially ones like Amazon who might see the upfront cost of moving to an electric fleet paying for itself over a number of years. And other forms of servicing should be cheaper too like you say.

    • Re:

      Same here. I've had a Tesla 3 since early 2020. I've driven about 10k miles a year and in that time I've had the same experience. I rotated the tires a couple of times and just replaced them as they were worn out. I've also replaced the windshield wipers twice and added a few gallons of washer fluid.

      And that's it. I charge mostly at home and with my local electric rates it costs me about $10 to drive 300 miles. This is easily the best car I've ever owned when it comes to the maintenance cost as well a

    • Re:

      Because people are stupid and regularly vote against their own interests.

      Would car manufacturers install seat belts if not forced to by legislation?

      Would people ask to install (and pay for) seat belts if they had a choice?

      I've had an EV for 3 years now. It's awesome. But it still has regular service, and let me tell you that those aren't cheap. Might be because of less competition. And people don't know what they actually do on a service checkup.

      I saved $80 or so by changing the $10 air filter myself. But s

    • Re:

      While your point is still quite valid, your example here is one well and truly from the 1980s. You drove your car 18000 miles? That is 0 oil changes on my 2010 era petrol car, which requires an oil change every 30,000km.

      Why was your point valid? Well after the crankshaft sensor failed, the fuel pump failed, the O2 sensor failed, and along with the actual oil changes + spark plug changes + timing belt... It may not show up every 6 months, but the maintenance of a gasoline engine does add up over the life of

      • Re:

        Also folks need to stop comparing new EV models against ICE models from 10-30 years ago. Modern ICE vehicles have grown far more compilated in very ICE distinct ways that EV's elminiate entirely:

        Complex emissions and EGR systems, some vehicles sporting 2 or 4 catalytic converters
        Turbocharged engines which put everything under more stress
        Direct or dual fuel injection systems
        6,7,8,9 and 10 and sometimes even higher transmissions, not to mention the dreaded CVT

        I just saw a video of a Toyota mechanic say that

      • Re:

        It's as simple as the fact that EVs have far few parts to fail. Just like everything else electronic, the technology will continue to evolve to become better, more reliable and much less costly. Look at the cost of TV sets. Solid state batteries are almost here and that's just the beginning. EV tech has not plateaued the way gas buggy tech has.

    • Re:

      You should not be changing your oil that often; follow the oil life monitor in your vehicle. In my case, that amounts to about one oil change per year, or 9,000 miles. Again, on modern vehicles, plugs and wires should last roughly 100,000 miles before any service is necessary. I don't think I have ever had a failed oil pump. I had a failed fuel pump once, but the car had over 100,000 miles and it was the sending unit for the fuel level that failed.

      Amazon's use of EVs in urban and suburban areas makes sens

      • Re:

        I had my last car for 6 years. The only thing it needed was oil changes. I ended up selling it because I wanted apple car play. I bet I was still a year or two away from a brake job.

    • re: EVs and maintenance

      I've been driving an EV as my daily driver for 5+ years now. So clearly, I made the decision they work well for me. But I also own several gas powered vehicles (including a Kia my daughter drives). One thing I've noticed is that a lot of EV owners brag about never having had to do any real repairs, but their total miles driven are still pretty low. If you haven't gone 100K plus on your EV, then you really aren't in a position to speak about their long term reliability and costs.

      Most auto-makers have tried t

    • Re:

      Because, for things this important, people might choose wrong.

      Apply that thinking widely, and you can see where our system of governance has gone terribly wrong. We want to control the outcome, not the process.

      It is logically impossible to control the outcome because you do not control the entire Universe. All you can do is control the process. But go ahead and keep trying to control the outcome. Let me know how that works out for you. (Royal you, not you personally russbutton; although maybe...)

      • Re:

        So ah... Since you think others might choose wrong, you're going to make that choice for them?

    • So far maintenance costs have been a wash

      at best. Sometimes worse. Hertz got out of EVs and besides unpredictable and severe depreciation maintenance was a big factor. That could just be a Tesla thing, since they were all Teslas, but by all accounts the current crop of EVs from other manufactures are still iffy. That's not a surprise, it's a brand new platform.
      
      Also, oil changes are every 6000 miles and have been for ages. If you're low mileage you can go a whole year. I work from home and put very little mileage on my car, so I do the change w

    • • Re:

        Nah, only Fox News viewers and Daily Mail readers. No normal EV owners I know have put any maintenance on their car beyond the first roadworthy (due here after 4 years for a new car).

      • Re:

        Not a great anecdote, if he had say a 2006 Dodge or BMW he might be singing a whole different story about maintenance.

        In not super chuffed on Tesla but it's been like a decade of Tesla's stock price having little to do with their product quality or their company fundamentals.

        Once the cost of a battery pack reaches the cost of a rebuilt/replacement engine or transmission then things have reached parity as those are pretty analogous in terms of labor effort to swap, I expect that in the next 5-ish years.

        • It's been most of three decades since pretty much any company's stock price has had anything to do with reality. It's all speculation, Wall Street has become a casino for the richest gambling addicts on the planet.

          • • Re:

              Maybe the issue that we look at investing as a series of ventures to risk "missing out on" is part of the problem

      • • Re:

          EVs just create a bigger problem with China instead. Furthermore, I'm not saying that we should sit on our hands with regards to global warming, but I knew about GHGs since I read kids books in the 70's. All that time I have been convinced that the capitalist system is the best system to provide for the needs of people and just let the market do the work. So I'm waiting for a replacement for ICEs that will be as convenient or more convenient and not ask me to break my bank account through modifying my ho

          • Re:

            The trouble is naïve raw capitalism has a dirty little problem it is well known to not work well for, and that is externalities. When we drive we aren't actually paying for all we consume, we are foisting it on the rest of us. Capitalism only efficiently solves these kind of problems when they are actually priced into the market. To properly have a capitalist solution to GHG within the time limits we have you'd need to price carbon far more aggressively into the market than it is now. My main issues wi

          • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday April 22, 2024 @07:47AM (#64413766)

            Outlawing of competition? The US, Europe, Asia et al are free to compete on battery technology, auto manufacturing, renewables and all the rest. The problem is they're NOT competing. Traditional automakers (e.g. GM, Toyota etc.) are spreading plenty of FUD about EVs and nonsense about hydrogen / ammonia powered cars. But compete? Not so much. Perhaps if they did, they'd wouldn't be in such a precarious situation.

            China stole a march because they went all in on EV technology while other regions dithered. That doesn't prevent other countries from catching up, and innovating in their own way. There are countless companies looking to improve battery technology, range, motor efficiency etc. so that I think batteries in 10 years from now will be nothing like the ones of today - they'll be lighter, more energy dense and probably solid or semi-solid state batteries. Many of these innovations will come from Western companies. Competition is the answer.

            Protectionism is certainly not the answer. Either by slapping tariffs on Chinese products or extending shitty ICE tech because the West is so backwards it can't compete. That's "outlawing of the competition". We should not tolerate ICE vehicles a second longer than necessary, at least where EVs are viable replacements. China probably has most to lose from the West pulling its finger out of its ass and actually competing and that's what needs to happen. And any company that can't keep up even with 15-20 years warning deserves its fate.

    • • Re:

        The "oil change" for the drive unit is more akin to a differential service on an ICE car, because you're only doing it after 100k miles or more - it's a sealed gearbox that the lubricants are not being exposed to extreme heat from hydrocarbon detonations that aren't happening. Comparing a service that you'll have to do once, to a service you'll have to do annually at best is pretty stupid.

        Tire costs:
        Michelin Pilot Sport 4S in a proper fitting for a Tesla Model 3 AWD [235/40ZR19 (96Y) XL] from Tire Rack: $3

      • • Re:

          That's the single reason I did not consider an EV for my new car as I have no such possibility: I am currently not allowed to install a charging station where my car is parked.

          Countries that want to push EVs as part of their lower-emission strategy really need to mandate the ability to install charging stations.

  • Re:

    Why in the world would you fantasize that they "couldn't foresee any of these problems?" No one makes a commitment to purchase 100,000 of a type of vehicle without examining what the cost/benefit is and what the initial installation costs are going to be.

    I'm continually puzzled why people imagine that Amazon is run by morons who don't know their heads from a hole in the ground. I worked there nine years, eight as a blue badge, with the most scary-smart people that I have ever met in my life. It was an am

• • Your post:

    "It is a big problem, and I'm going to claim it's even worse than it is by throwing in a few other problems we've already solved. You should therefore not try to do anything, nor should anyone else. Burn oil!!!"

• • Re:

    EV's might save the planet, but not in the way you think. If the civilized world was no longer forced defend the profits of oil companies with blood and treasure, we could put a fence around the Middle East and let a bunch of tribes that have been slaughtering each other for more than two millennia just have at it. This would indeed give the planet a better chance for a future.

  • Re:

    So you don't list anything about CO2 or other pollution in the things you care about.

  • • Re:

      Hydrogen has a big problem, distribution. Somewhere between 3-10% of the natural gas used in the world leaks out of pipelines and storage devices, pump hydrogen through that same infrastructure and your losses are estimated to balloon to over 40%. Deploying hydrogen would demand an entirely new infrastructure, which is massively expensive and massively disruptive.

    • Re:

      Of course, if you go with Green Hydrogen, the oil companies will flood the market with cheap hydrogen from gasified coal and natural gas. So hydrogen is an excuse to keep the oil industry going as-is. As someone who has driven an EV for nine years, they're a very solid technology, not some "silly approach."

      Now hydrogen may make sense for aircraft or ships.