rivian

A plug for all cars

January 23, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Different brands of electric cars have required different charging connections. There has been no standard connector for charging. But now, as the transition to electric vehicles is accelerating, there is the North American Charging Standard, which within in the next couple of years, will be common to pretty much any new electric vehicle on the road.

There have been several different charging connector systems in use by auto manufacturers and each charging station offered only a particular one of them. The largest charging network in the US has been Tesla’s Supercharger Network, which uses a proprietary standard it put in place in 2012. Tesla offered to open up their charging technology to other cars but auto manufacturers declined to take them up on the offer for a number of years. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, provided federal subsidies for building out fast charging networks, provided a common charging standard was adopted. That has broken the log-jam.

The Tesla Charging Standard has been renamed the North American Charging Standard and Tesla opened its technology to other manufacturers in November 2022.

Automakers who have signed on to the standard include BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Lucid, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Polestar, Rivian, Subaru, Toyota, and Volvo. In December, the Volkswagen Group – which includes Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi – announced that they are also implementing it for future vehicles in North America, starting in 2025. (The only significant holdout is Stellantis, parent of Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep).

It will be a year or two before cars from all these companies will have the NACS connector and be able to charge at the same stations, but it will happen.

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Volkswagen, Audi, And Porsche Finally Commit To Using Tesla’s NACS Plug

Photo, posted July 8, 2023, courtesy of Michael Swan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric Mail Trucks | Earth Wise

January 26, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The US Postal Service recently announced that it plans to buy at least 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028. With more than 231,000 total vehicles, the Postal Services operates one of the largest civilian vehicle fleets in the world.

Last February, the Postal Service announced a plan to replace up to 165,000 older mail trucks, many of which are as much as 30 years old. The gas-powered trucks get an estimated 8.6 miles per gallon when air conditioning is running. The plan was for only 10% of the new trucks to be electric, citing the high upfront costs of electric vehicles even though they generally make up the difference by saving on fuel and maintenance costs over time.

Facing strong criticism from the Biden administration, the Postal Service shifted course and in July announced that 40% of the new trucks would be electric. With passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August, the Postal Service received $3 billion for fleet electrification and has once again changed its plans. It also announced that it intends to stop buying gas-powered delivery trucks altogether after 2026.

As part of the new plan, the Postal Service plans to upgrade hundreds of facilities across the country to accommodate electric vehicles. This will include installing chargers and streamlining delivery operations to reduce unnecessary trips.

The Postal Service is no alone in working to clean up its fleets. FedEx says it plans to completely electrify its pickup and delivery fleet by 2040. Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric vans from the start-up company Rivian.

Electrifying the postal delivery system makes abundant sense. Postal routes are predictable and there is ample charging time to meet the power needs of the fleet.

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Your Mail Truck Is Going Electric

Photo, posted January 18, 2017, courtesy of Rusty Clark via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Electrifying Delivery Vehicles | Earth Wise

October 12, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Most of the buzz about electric vehicles relates to passenger cars as the auto industry is making a major transition away from gasoline power. Recently, pickup trucks have started to get some attention as well as Ford’s electric version of the F-150 truck has hit the streets and the long-awaited Tesla Cybertruck will be introduced next year. There hasn’t been as much talk about delivery vehicles, but there should be.

There are about 15 million delivery vehicles in the U.S., and they are a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The post office alone has a quarter million of them. Such vehicles are especially attractive candidates for electrification. Most travel relatively consistent and short routes, which makes it easier for companies to be able to charge them and keep them charged.

Electrifying delivery vehicles in cities is especially important because the vehicles travel into and through residential neighborhoods, spreading pollution and particulates as they go.

Some provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act provide credits for the purchase of commercial vehicles. Light-duty vans and trucks qualify for a credit of as much as $7,500. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks qualify for credits as high as $40,000. In addition, substantial tax credits are available for the installation of charging equipment.

According to a study by the Rocky Mountain Institute, sixty percent of new truck sales could be electric by 2030. By 2035, the trucking industry could cut its emissions in half.

American companies are already stepping up to the plate. Amazon plans to deploy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from new automaker Rivian. Walmart, UPS, FedEx, and others have also committed to electrified trucks.

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The Climate Bill Will Electrify More Delivery Vans and Trucks

Photo, posted August 1, 2021, courtesy of Ivan Radic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric Pickup Trucks | Earth Wise

April 5, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There are more and more electric cars on the market as auto manufacturers move toward fleet-wide electrification. In the United States, pickup trucks are massively popular. The top three selling vehicles in the country are all trucks, led by the Ford F-Series. Thus, it is no surprise that automakers are now turning their attention to electric pickup trucks.

Some of the trucks are from established manufacturers like Ford and Chevy and others from new companies like Rivian. The Ford F-150 Lightning is bound to be a big seller. There are hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for Tesla’s exotic Cybertruck, now expected to enter the market next year.

A recent study looked at the environmental impact of pickup truck electrification. The central question is what does the transition to electric trucks mean for the overall decarbonization of the transportation industry?

Researchers from the University of Michigan and the Ford Motor Company conducted a cradle-to-grave assessment of the life cycle of pickup trucks and compared the implications of truck electrification to those of sedans and SUVs.

The study found that replacing an internal combustion-powered vehicle with a battery-powered vehicle results in greater total greenhouse gas emission reductions as the size of the vehicle increases, which is no real surprise considering how much more gas larger vehicles use.

The study also found that manufacturing electric vehicles produces more emissions than gas-powered vehicles, but the impact is offset by savings in their operation. Breakeven time is little more than a year.

Basically, the results are that replacing gas-powered trucks with electric trucks is even a bigger win for the planet than replacing gas cars with electric cars. Let’s hope we see plenty of electric trucks on the roads in the near future.

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Study: Greater greenhouse gas reductions for pickup truck electrification than for other light-duty vehicles

Photo, posted September 22, 2020, courtesy of Steve Jurvetson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Amazon And Climate Change

October 30, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Online shopping giant Amazon has unveiled a Climate Pledge, committing to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement ten years ahead of schedule, and to be carbon neutral by 2040. This is the company’s most ambitious push yet to reduce its carbon footprint, which currently rivals that of a small country. In fact, Amazon is responsible for 48.9 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, which is about 85% of what Switzerland typically emits in a year.

Amazon, which ships more than 10 billion items a year on fossil fuel-intensive planes and trucks, has ordered a fleet of 100,000 electric vans that will start delivering packages to doorsteps in 2021. The vans will be made by Rivian, a Michigan-based company that Amazon invested in earlier this year.

Amazon plans to get 100% of its energy from solar and other renewable sources by 2030. Currently, it gets about 40% of its energy from renewables.

Amazon is also investing $100 million in nature-based climate solutions and reforestation projects around the world in order to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

While announcing these initiatives recently at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company needs to be a leader on the climate change issue:

We want to say look, if a company of Amazon’s complexity, scale, scope, physical infrastructure, delivering 10 billion items can do this, so can you.

After revealing Amazon’s Climate Pledge, Bezos said he would talk with CEOs of other large companies to try to get them to also sign it. You can find a link to Amazon’s progress on its commitments by visiting this website.

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‘Middle of the herd’ no more: Amazon tackles climate change

Amazon: Committed to a sustainable future (track progress here)

Photo courtesy of Amazon.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.