3 ms·

Turning Garbage Trucks and Fedex Vans into High Performance EVs

38 points by teklaperry 12y ago

mattgrice 12y ago
I don't understand how they can have almost all custom hardware, saying only generators and batteries come from an outside supplier, and yet have only 18 employees, which are mostly engineers. Someone has to build that stuff. Maybe they think it doesn't count as 'outside supplier' if it is not off-the-shelf?
- msandford 12y ago
  I suspect that they're talking about only buying a few finished assemblies from outside suppliers. It's kind of a bullshit metric though if you're contracting with machine shops to make a bunch of different parts and then do nothing more than assemble them. Of course, where do you stop? If you buy billets, and machine those, does that count as in-house? Or do you have to buy raw ingots and turn those into billets or castings? Or do you need to operate a smelter and only buy raw ore? Or do you need to own the mine and the mining equipment? It's like XKCD says, everything is fractal. One guy's "in house" is another's "completely outsourced".
- DanBC 12y ago
  I suspect they count "sub contracted to a manufacturer" as in-house, and off the shelf as out of house.
sjtrny 12y ago
I'm amazed they got a patent for a traction control system. Wait no I'm not the patent system is fucked.
ewfuentes 12y ago
There are a number of companies that have done iterations of this in the past and I don't see how this is going to play out differently. Azure Dynamics stopped production of their electric Transit Connect. Smith EV was in financial trouble until they were bought by Sinopoly. Boulder EV has also folded. It doesn't seem like there is an appetite for EV retrofits in the $100K price point. While this is technically a hybrid, they are doing a similar full powertrain replacement as these other companies.
rasz_pl 12y ago
yay for that pretty much software patent (algorighm) describing obvious extension of ESC (25 years old tech). In fact SLS AMG Electric Drive had this very tech in 2012.
cpwright 12y ago
Regenerative braking makes a lot of sense for garbage trucks, they start and stop all the time, so burn a lot of fuel getting going just to stop 50-100 ft. down the road.

38 points by teklaperry 12y ago

I don't understand how they can have almost all custom hardware, saying only generators and batteries come from an outside supplier, and yet have only 18 employees, which are mostly engineers. Someone has to build that stuff. Maybe they think it doesn't count as 'outside supplier' if it is not off-the-shelf?

msandford 12y ago
I suspect that they're talking about only buying a few finished assemblies from outside suppliers. It's kind of a bullshit metric though if you're contracting with machine shops to make a bunch of different parts and then do nothing more than assemble them. Of course, where do you stop? If you buy billets, and machine those, does that count as in-house? Or do you have to buy raw ingots and turn those into billets or castings? Or do you need to operate a smelter and only buy raw ore? Or do you need to own the mine and the mining equipment? It's like XKCD says, everything is fractal. One guy's "in house" is another's "completely outsourced".
DanBC 12y ago
I suspect they count "sub contracted to a manufacturer" as in-house, and off the shelf as out of house.

sjtrny 12y ago

I'm amazed they got a patent for a traction control system. Wait no I'm not the patent system is fucked.

ewfuentes 12y ago

There are a number of companies that have done iterations of this in the past and I don't see how this is going to play out differently. Azure Dynamics stopped production of their electric Transit Connect. Smith EV was in financial trouble until they were bought by Sinopoly. Boulder EV has also folded. It doesn't seem like there is an appetite for EV retrofits in the $100K price point. While this is technically a hybrid, they are doing a similar full powertrain replacement as these other companies.

rasz_pl 12y ago

yay for that pretty much software patent (algorighm) describing obvious extension of ESC (25 years old tech). In fact SLS AMG Electric Drive had this very tech in 2012.

cpwright 12y ago

Regenerative braking makes a lot of sense for garbage trucks, they start and stop all the time, so burn a lot of fuel getting going just to stop 50-100 ft. down the road.