About Those New Mail Trucks: Now EPA Wants Them to Be EVs
February 4, 2022 - Upgrading the U.S. Postal Service’s truck fleet has been a long and controversial process. The USPS started looking for replacements for 150,000 or so Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs) in around 2015.
For a while, it looked like the new fleet might be made up of mostly electric vehicles, but when the contract for the new mail trucks was awarded to Oshkosh Defense in the spring of 2021, the USPS said only 10 percent of the new mail trucks might be electric. One of the contenders for an electric truck, Workhorse, sued the USPS last summer over the deal.
Now the government is asking the USPS to pause on the $11.3 billion contract and reconsider the gas-powered truck purchases in the face of climate damage. The new Oshkosh trucks are just 0.4 mile per gallon more efficient compared to the outgoing LLVs—8.6 mpg versus 8.2 mpg for the older vehicles.
Electric Vehicles Bring Down CO2 Emissions of New Cars in UK to Lowest Level Ever
February 4, 2022 - The carbon dioxide emissions of new cars sold in the UK dropped to the lowest level ever in 2021 thanks to the unprecedented surge in electric vehicle sales, industry data suggests.
Average new car CO2 emissions fell by 11.2%, to 119.7g for every kilometer driven, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group. Car sales data for January showed that the number of battery electric cars more than doubled year on year to 14,400, accounting for 12.5% of cars sold.
Ben Nelmes, the head of policy and research at the thinktank New AutoMotive, said: “Electric car sales have doubled in the last year, but there is still a mountain to climb to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions from cars. The 90,000 internal combustion engines that rolled off forecourts this month will continue to pollute and hit motorists in their pockets for another 14 years, on average.”
Ford Punishing Dealers Caught Price-Gouging Popular EVs
February 4, 2022 - Roughly 10 percent of dealers have reportedly taken advantage of increasingly long wait times for popular Ford models by trying to charge above MSRP and "gouge" customers. Ford CEO Jim Farley knows who they are, and they will feel Ford's wrath in their future vehicle allocation deals with the automaker.
Dealers have so much control over vehicle prices right now because demand is through the roof and into the clouds, so people will pay more for the car they can find. Ford was the No. 2 seller of electric vehicles in the U.S. in 2021, behind juggernaut Tesla, but ahead of General Motors.
Ford already has a combination of orders and reservations for about 275,000 Ford Mustang Mach-Es, Lightnings, and E-Transit commercial vehicles. Farley said the automaker underestimated demand for its new electric vehicles and is now doubling capacity to produce at least 600,000 EVs globally by 2023.
Motorcycle Riders Literally See the Road Differently Than Drivers
February 6, 2022 - A new study from England’s Bournemouth University found that drivers seemingly ignore some of the risks motorcycle riders notice. The study was organized to determine how people process visual road information.
Human brains are programmed to recognize certain things as potential threats. Big objects, especially big fast-moving objects, are one of them. But a motorcycle is smaller in comparison to a car, so our brain prioritizes the car to avoid overtaxing itself. Because bikes are smaller, it’s harder for our brains to accurately judge their speed.
Our peripheral vision doesn’t actually pass on a lot of information. Instead, our brain fills in the relatively small field of vision with things it knows historically are in the vicinity. So, if something new, say, a motorcycle rider, enters your peripheral vision, your brain might not perceive or process it.
Safety Group: Pedestrian Detection Systems Don’t Work as Well at Night
February 4, 2022 - Automatic emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection – those heavily advertised systems that stop a car from hitting a pedestrian even if the driver doesn’t hit the brakes fast enough – work well, according to one of America’s leading auto safety groups. They work well, that is, in the daytime.
Then comes the damning sentence: “However, when the researchers looked only at pedestrian crashes that occurred at night on roads without streetlights, there was no difference in crash risk for vehicles with and without pedestrian AEB.”
The conclusion comes from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in a new report. The group plans to launch a new round of testing to improve the auto industry’s approach to preventing pedestrian crashes.
