Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment About damn time! (Score 2) 224

I bought a Mach-e and can't wait for the dealership model to disappear. I frequent the mach-e forums and there are tons of stories of dealer's pushing bogus add-ons (nitrogen tires, glass protection, wheel insurance, etc.) or marking cars up thousands of dollars above MSRP. I had to try quite a few dealerships before I found one that wasn't playing dishonest games with price gouging. Search for a Mach-e on dealer websites, you will be lucky to find one at MSRP most are listed at 5-20k over!!

Comment Re:So much infrastructure needed (Score 1) 181

There's some concern about total capacity, but I don't think you will see a concentration of charging stations beyond interstates and enough to service the "oops I forgot to charge and need to head across town" crowd. I "fill up" 2-3 times a week. It costs me about $3 at home or about $30 at a charging station, I obviously try to avoid charging stations whenever possible. In the 9 months of having an electric vehicle, I've charged away from home maybe 12 times. 10 of those were on long trips. I think we'll start to see more chargers outside stores and restaurants to entice people to spend the twenty minutes or so spending money rather than hanging out at an electrified "gas" station.

Comment Almost a criminal missed opportunity (Score 2) 419

Here's my perspective after six months of owning an electric vehicle (Mustang Mach-e):

Instant torque, minimal "fuel" use while idling, regenerative braking and lower maintenance costs make electric vehicles perfect for postal use. It's also the same reason many police departments are trialing electric vehicles.

Heating/Cooling - running climate control has a negligible effect on battery life and range. I've heard reports of people camping in their car, running climate control all night and seeing only a 3-8% drop in range. Of course this was during temperate weather. Real world range will be less during winter in colder climates, a conservative drop of 20-30% of total range. Most of this is related to heating the battery and reduced battery efficiency in the cold, not climate control. There are strategies to reduce the weather-related drop in efficiency like pre-conditioning the battery before use that will mitigate this effect.

Charging infrastructure - Will require a massive investment in charging infrastructure. 40A chargers plugged into 240v lines at a minimum to charge in about 6 hours vs 14 hrs for a 120v plug in charger. However, this increased upfront cost will be offset by a massive decrease in maintenance costs - no oil changes, exhaust replacement, tune-ups, reduced frequency of brake maintenance (regenerative braking decreases wear on pads), etc. And the actual savings from replacing fuel cost with electrical cost.

Range - Most consumer electric vehicles offer total range of 300 miles, I'm assuming a purpose-built postal vehicle would have an even larger battery capacity.. Keeping the charge level between 20-90% to reduce battery degradation will shorten the range, as will winter weather in Northern locations. Even so, I would expect the percentages to be switched - electric vehicles meeting the needs of 90% of the routes.

Even ignoring the reduction in pollutants and environmental impact, it's a no-brainer.

Comment Re:Not mentioned (Score 1) 103

The cardboard waste is horrible with Amazon. Really wish they would switch to reusable. They only use a handful of different box sizes. I'd definitely be willing to put the empties out for pick-up when I get a delivery notification. Most of the deliveries these days are Amazon trucks, no reason they couldn't pick-up reusable containers.

Comment unintended consequences? (Score 1) 96

I'm all for this in principle. I cringe every time I see apples sold in plastic clamshell packaging.

It will be interesting to see how this is implemented. Will cardboard packaging replace the plastic resulting in an overall increase in trash volume? Will customers be forced to purchase reusable carriers that inevitably get lost or forgotten? Or most likely, will they be displayed loose only to be packed into plastic shopping bags by the cashier?

Slashdot Top Deals

Kill Ugly Processor Architectures - Karl Lehenbauer

Working...