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I saw one of these a few months ago when visiting Tampa. I was really surprised there was zero Rivian branding on the outside. More generally, electrifying the
by cj 3y ago
I saw one of these a few months ago when visiting Tampa. I was really surprised there was zero Rivian branding on the outside.
More generally, electrifying these sort of vehicle fleets makes a lot of sense since usage is predictable, order volume is high if replacing a whole fleet, they run on a schedule, and the problem set can be well defined (compared to passenger vehicles where you need to solve for every edge case).
- taeric 3y agoI'm a bit more bullish on it. It makes some sense in dense areas, I think. Which almost certainly accounts for the majority of areas that are covered by delivery. However, the range is not to be discounted. Assuming a delivery van will operate for basically the full working day, I'd assume 200 miles is not unheard of for driving, and I see the range is about 150 miles for them. That said, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/14/what-its-like-to-deliver-for-amazon-in-new-rivian-electric-vans.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/14/what-its-like-to-deliver-for... seems to indicate that the range is working out ok? I'm curious if that is strictly in the dense areas? Mayhap the lower density also translates to fewer deliveries such that you have a lower "duty cycle" as it were?
- jackmott42 3y agocould potentially supercharge them over lunch breaks if needed. fleets could also battery swap with less complication than normal end user cars. they also have to be WAY easier to drive. they just scoot out of there rather than having to shift 9 times to get up to speed.
- throwaway5752 3y agoAgreed, they'd outperform in stop and go driving. Delivery in urban areas is their sweet spot. Since the workload is largely over the work day, supercharging needs are probably limited and vans can be just overnight on level 2 chargers.
- jiveturkey42 3y agoAlso considering that it's policy UPS (maybe others?) to turn off the engine at every stop, and starting a vehicle is fuel intensive in an ICE vehicle
- brk 3y agoI don't think that is correct, many vehicles now have the auto start/stop as a way of meeting emissions requirements.
- LgWoodenBadger 3y agoIf it's so intensive, why is auto-stop/start such a common feature on many vehicles? Especially since it seems to improve city-cycle mpg ratings...
- ekleraki 3y ago[flagged]
- housemusicfan 3y agoThis is false.
- ekleraki 3y agoCan you find a link that shows that ICE / non hybrid and non ev make up the majority of cars with automatic start and stop?
- flangola7 3y agoThere's many 100% ICE vehicles that shutdown at stops.
- ekleraki 3y agoMostly means the majority and by construction allows for exceptions.
- notatoad 3y ago> since usage is predictable I think this is the important bit. Amazon knows on exactly which routes a full battery and a full load of packages line up, so they can put the EVs on those routes.
- kotaKat 3y agoAnother thing I was just thinking of this morning was that you could implement possible charging into a route of packages -- pushing an automatic break in for a driver to stop for 10-15 minutes and grab a DC fast charge somewhere. It'd almost be a win-win: the driver gets a predictable break on the route (and knows they get a break!) and you can keep the vehicle on route longer. On top of that, while plugged in, they can keep cool/warm in the vehicle without having to idle it or have additional wear and tear...
- taeric 3y agoIt ultimately doesn't pan out that well. Will work right up til someone finds that they can get a % more delivered without doing the stops. You can see this in long race formats that have breaks. Teams that find a way to not do the break wind up winning. Such that you then have to mandate them, which works for things that people don't get value out of. We already have similar mandates for truck driving, and I think most folks would be surprised that that exists. And they are far looser than what would be required for last mile driving.
- yebyen 3y ago> Teams that find a way to not do the break wind up winning Teams that don't take the break will be inhibited by the limited range of their un-recharged vehicles. Are you suggesting that some people will find out how to swap their vehicles, and keep the shift going? (Or add an extra length of hose to the fuel line, for a virtually bigger tank? That type of trick isn't going to work well with battery vehicles...) How is it you propose that someone is going to get more work done in less time, when their total range / route length is reduced by the extra effective distance they would have been able to continue with 15 minutes of fast charging added in, at the one or two points where it makes sense to add a stop in their shifts?
- pjungwir 3y agoBearish?
- taeric 3y agoHa, yeah, I used the wrong term. :( Apologies on the confusion. My main point is still on the "contra to my view" side, though. I'm skeptical that they are as good of an idea as stated, but evidence is positive on them.
- pessimizer 3y agoYou ride a bull, you run from a bear.
- taeric 3y agoNice! I actually knew the correct term, though. Have a bad habit of switching binary things a lot. :( Edit: Amusingly, I think I was thinking that I was bullish against it. Such that I flipped a different part of the sentence. Still, wrong as written.
- tbeseda 3y agoOr: bears hibernate, bulls charge
- jaipilot747 3y agoIt's confusing, because people generally don't ride bulls. Where I'm from you gently back off from both bulls and bears.
- taeric 3y agoI remember it as bears hibernate, so they will stockpile resources and not let go of them. I don't really have an analog for the bulls, oddly.
- LeafItAlone 3y agoI was taught it was how they attack. Bears: stand and swipe down with their paw Bulls: start with their head low and jut upwards with their horns
- gambiting 3y agoDPD does all their deliveries in my area(medium size city in the UK) with Nissan NV100 electric vans and they get 100 miles of range on a good day(more like 60-80). The biggest chunk of that is warehouse to the city, then in-city driving makes very little impact on battery range since you're starting and stopping constantly(which is actually directly opposite to the efficiency of ICE cars)
- taeric 3y agoI'm curious if they have to have more vans than they would otherwise need, then? That could easily let you cover the day with lower range. I'm also open to challenges in my thoughts on typical range needed for a city fleet in deliveries. Will try and take a dive to find more data there.
- Doxin 3y agoI feel like loading whilst charging would minimize the impact charging makes quite significantly. Fast charging takes what, 20 minutes? I'm not sure loading a van is much faster.
- gambiting 3y agoTruck operators already do that - Volvo was saying that in the trials for their fully electric truck, charging while the truck is being loaded at the depot is fast enough for all day of operating. Of course that's not long distance driving, but plenty of customers for this kind of thing already.
- jackmott42 3y agoAnother benefit is batteries degrade with age worse than they do with use. So high mileage applications are perfect, way less stuff wears out with mileage than a gasoline/diesel truck. A delivery van can put enough miles on to wear the chassis out before the battery pack degrades too much from age.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoI drove pure electric (bmw i3) for 7+ years, and i'm unclear on what "age" means here, since recharge cycles I thought of as defining age, combined with the ambient temps of the battery pack during discharge and recharge.
- ms512 3y agoRechargeable battery wear can be separated out into (1) cycle aging and (2) calendar aging. One of those typically dominates the total battery degradation, depending on the use case. EVs for personal use tend to have calendar aging dominate the overall battery degradation early in their life.
- jackmott42 3y agoThe other reply got it right, but I would add that the higher the temperature the faster the pack degrades, even when it is just sitting there.
- ortusdux 3y agoHow do/did you like it? I'm suppose to test drive one next week.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoi3 pure electric was great but they dont make them anymore
- ortusdux 3y agoFor the scale they are operating at, it wouldn't be crazy to pull batteries that dip below a set kWh/lb value and use them as electricity storage.
- SoftTalker 3y agoFrom a business perspective it makes sense if the TCO is lower than an equivalent gas or diesel truck. That's really the only thing a sane business will think about. There's probably some "goodwill" value in the public perception of driving around in electric trucks, but the bank won't clear payroll checks on goodwill. This is Amazon though, so who knows how they think about it. Our school district had a transportation manager who refused to buy electric school buses because the bottom line was they were more expensive to own and operate. He considered initial purchase costs, ongoing maintenance, the need to install and maintain a charging infrastructure for a fleet of buses, and the depreciation on the battery and replacement costs for same. He was replaced shortly thereafter by someone who promoted the party line. A referendum for a property tax increase was on the ballot within a couple of years. It passed of course, because "schools"
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago"Amazon bought the naming rights to the arena in June 2020, dedicating the arena name to bringing attention to climate change." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Pledge_Arena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Pledge_Arena
- cj 3y agoFrom the EV manufacturer’s perspective, I imagine it’s likely easier to convince 1 “transportation manager” in your example to buy 50 school busses (single purpose vehicles) compared to convincing 50 consumers to buy 50 EVs each user with different driving patterns/needs. Likely also easier and cheaper to do maintenance on a 50 school bus fleet compared to maintenance for 50 individual consumer cars. The business case can be well defined as expressed in your example, which makes solving for that problem easier. Selling en mass to the general public is a harder feat for an EV startup IMO Tesla took the route of selling low volume luxury and then went down market. Seems like Rivian is taking a strategy of special purpose fleet vehicles (and I imagine eventually broadening their focus to consumers) - both are pretty smart business approaches to growth IMO
- bobthepanda 3y agoAt the same time, anyone buying a fleet is expecting a discount for bulk. So the margin is thinner. It is, for example, how airplanes have been so competitive despite there effectively being a duopoly. Pretty much no one is buying an airliner at list price.
- mnd999 3y agoYep, we used to deliver milk door to door daily in the UK with a fully electric fleet 50 years ago.
- themadturk 3y agoThere is a small "Powered By Rivian" badge on each side by the driver and "passenger" doors, if I remember right. The video walkthrough mentioned in the Ars comments calls it out specifically, and I was able to see it when stopped next to one at a stoplight.