Electrification of Private and Commercial Land Travel
250,000 delivery trucks from gas to electric, eventually.
First published Sept 1, 2024
Global warming and the resultant climate change leading to destructive storms involving tornados, high winds, heavy rain, floods and wind-driven fires, alternating with drought, have resulted in extensive destruction of communities, human displacement, injuries and deaths. The financial implications are an economic concern, as has been the rising cost or inability to obtain building and home insurance protection. The impact on human life is profound. Transportation is responsible for about 30% of global carbon emissions. Approximately 20% of all carbon emissions comes from roadway vehicular exhausts.
In the spring 2024 issue of Catalyst, the Deputy Director of the Clean Transportation Service at the Union of Concerned Scientists reported the significant progress in the sales of electronic vehicles (EVs) in the United States. In January 2022, sales of EVs and plug in hybrid vehicles were just under 5% of total auto sales. A near linear monthly increase in sales has occurred, so that by December 2023 nearly 12% of all vehicles sold were of those two types.
California has been a leader in EV sales. As better-priced models entered the marketplace and charging infrastructure improved, a lag in sales has been reversed. Along with purchase price, access to charging stations has been near the top of the list of impediments to EV sales. The U.S. has adopted Tesla’s charging technology as the universal standard, now referred to as the “North American Charging Standard”. As the Tesla network opens to other vehicles and public and private investments in reliable and more frequent charging stations occurs, one anticipates a sea change in attitudes toward EV purchases. A falling cost for EVs, also, has enhanced sales. Tesla drivers will benefit from this charging standardization as well. The Environmental Protection Agency issued its latest standards for vehicle emissions in the spring of 2024, which will eliminate billions of tons of pollution from the air.
Electrifying the United States Postal Service (USPS) mail delivery fleet would be a large forward leap. There are 250,000 USPS mail delivery trucks in service. The most commonly used model, the Grumman LLV, designed 30 years ago is very inefficient, getting 10 miles per gallon of gasoline. Originally committing to electrifying 10 % of its fleet, pressure from several environmental advocacy groups and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act convinced the Postal Service to move to a goal of over 50% of its fleet. One anticipates that it will be 100% eventually. Ninety percent of postal routes are less than 70 miles with an average of 21 miles. Thus, the USPS delivery fleet is ideal for electrification. Its new generation EV fleet can run on small batteries because of the predictable low mileage for each route. The first USPS EVs and charging stations were introduced in Atlanta, Georgia in January 2024. At its completion, this fleet change will lower toxic tailpipe emissions and will reduce the high cost (multimillions of dollars) to the postal service of annual delivery truck maintenance and fuel costs.
One anticipates the conversion of private local delivery services to EVs for the environmental and public health benefits and lower costs that would accrue. UPS is planning to rely on EVs and other alternative fuel vehicles to reduce emissions. Those other vehicles include thousands of step vans that run on renewable natural gas. Renewable natural gas is derived from biological materials not fossil fuel deposits. FedEx is looking for opportunities to incorporate lower-emission delivery trucks into its fleet. Getting the right style and size of trucks manufactured and matching that production to demand will help accelerate this outcome. An economic pas de deux between supply and demand.
Pechter’s Bakery in New York City went from horse drawn delivery trucks to Edison Electric Trucks in circa late 1920’s. They were one of the first, perhaps the first, commercial companies to change from horse-drawn vehicles to an alkaline battery powered EV. Thomas Alva Edison was present to give a personal send-off when the first of these trucks went into service. Edison’s EVs were undependable because of the primitive alkaline battery technology and he lost the competition to his former employee and friend, Henry Ford, who left Edison Illumination Company to start Detroit Automobile Company. It was renamed the Ford Motor Company, three years later. He used a gasoline-powered engine. Edison, however, was right in retrospect. He favored electric powered vehicles but drove a Ford car out of necessity. It just took many decades for the battery technology to bring us to this point.
An early Edison electric truck
A modern all-electric truck from the Bollinger Company. Fittingly, the current Edison Company in Canada also has developed electric trucks.