Amazon here drives cargo vans that are electric. Many many of them.
Not sure if that's the type of cargo van you were referring to?
Not sure if that's the type of cargo van you were referring to?
EV vs ICE
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Chevrolet canceled the BrightDrop this year. Too bad, it looks like a nice van. I saw one the other day. Some dealers are accepting low ball offers. Unfortunately, most have the mid-sized battery pack. The Max range versions are rare.
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EbS-P
Minister of Fire
I think Amazon has some Rivian vans. Those and the bright drop fall into the full size category. Fine for fleets. Nothing the general public would be interested in.
Now Mercedes has a hybrid (GLE I think) that has the same motor and transmission as my van. They sell it as a plug in hybrid in Europe with a 30 ish kWh battery. That package, gasoline or diesel, in a medium size van similar to the PV5 would be a real game changer. 30-50 miles of electric range. 100-130 electric HP and lots of electric torque plus the ICE engine. I’m not sure who this would appeal to. Mercedes stopped selling the Metris in the US. It had cargo and passenger versions. In the US market size wins. Bigger the better. Makes EVs a tougher sell.
Now Mercedes has a hybrid (GLE I think) that has the same motor and transmission as my van. They sell it as a plug in hybrid in Europe with a 30 ish kWh battery. That package, gasoline or diesel, in a medium size van similar to the PV5 would be a real game changer. 30-50 miles of electric range. 100-130 electric HP and lots of electric torque plus the ICE engine. I’m not sure who this would appeal to. Mercedes stopped selling the Metris in the US. It had cargo and passenger versions. In the US market size wins. Bigger the better. Makes EVs a tougher sell.
Some of the battery manufacturing capacity is already pivoting to utility-scale storage, which continues to be a fast-growing market.
My long experience in the technology field is that technologies can seem stalled from the perspective how most people see them but underneath the surface there is tremendous innovation (improvement, cost reductions, etc.) happening. And suddenly the technology breaks out into mass market adoption, seemingly from nowhere (from most people's perspective).
The efforts to "kill" electric cars would have been far more successful 10 years ago before the adoption curve accelerated (similar to now for offshore wind in the US). I recall that solar PV was something like 1% of US electric generation 10 years ago, and now it is something like 10% of US electric generation now (and will continue to grow, regardless of policy and tax changes).
At some point, you can't stop cheaper, more reliable, and better. Cheaper is here today in terms of total cost of ownership (though this is not well understood by most people, or they are misinformed) and will be also true in 5 years for initial purchase cost, and more reliable and better driving experience are here today. The one hurdle is larger vehicles (i.e., trucks), but the opening seems large for the right company to launch a low cost smaller pickup truck that just happens to be electric, which will begin the adoption process for the half of truck buyers who really don't need to tow anything. Even battery size/cost for large vehicles will not be an issue 10 years out, nor will ability to charge if you are an apartment renter or lack a home. Then (2035 or so) the only reasons people will be buying fossil-fuel vehicles will because of simple stubbornness or political fealty, and if they are willing to pay more then that is their choice.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
The model in that segment is profitable. Peak demand electricity prices are really high.
Most truck owners think they will need to tow something
ignoring all their past lack of towing. The truck market will be hard and I think the last holdout to go all electric, but could have been a leader in innovation with the right PHEV.
Same here - I have eliminated every large user of fossil fuels and replaced it with something electric. I'm not dogmatic about getting rid of everything to get to zero fossil fuel use - eliminating 97% of that seems like a pretty good result and I don't worry about the balance.
Personally, I really dislike engines and they dislike me - I have no ability to repair them and they mostly seem to fail me when I really need them. Gone are all the small yard implement engines (replaced with electric). Having said that, it is not really realistic to replace everything. I am down to:
- My Ford 8N tractor (maybe uses 25 gallons of gasoline a year) that I use for bush hogging and firewood hauling - there is no practical electric replacement for this in the 10-year horizon. If it fails, I'll buy a newer used tractor of the same size that also uses gas (or diesel).
- My lawn tractor - I've looked at the EGO lawn tractors - they are expensive ($4-5k) and seems pseudo-klugey (just uses a bunch of their standard battery packs). I have reduced the size of my mowed yard from ~2 acres to about 1/2 an acre (I am turning the rest into pollinator habitat that gets a once/year brush hog mowing). I expect to get rid of the gas lawn tractor this summer (every winter mice seem to get into it and cause $500 of damage, no matter what I do) and replace it with a self-powered EGO push mower (realistically, I only mow every 2 to 3 weeks, and I'll just mow half of my half acre every weekend or so). This might be just as fast as the lawn tractor given that I have a lot of perennial beds that are hard to work around when mowing with a large (not zero turn) lawn tractor. Having said that, gas usage is probably only about 5 or so gallons a year with the lawn area reductions and my mowing schedule.
- Walk-behind BCS tractor - there is no practical electric replacement for this in the 10-year horizon, but it maybe only uses 2-3 gallons of gas a year. It also functions as my snowblower if we get a big snowstorm. This got heavy work last year converting a half acre of field across from my house into what will become a wildflower bed, with another half acre to go.
- Chain saw - again, there are electric chain saws but these are not practical for getting through a couple of cords of hickory a half a mile from my house every fall. Having said that, most branch wood is cut with an electric chop saw and the gas usage is only 1 or so gallons a year.
- Log splitter - there is no practical electric replacement for this in the 10-year horizon, again I'd be shocked if I used even 2 gallons a year for this.
Last summer I bought a Ryobi battery operated lawn mower for my 0.4 acres of hilly, uneven, with some rocks and roots, terrain. I also have some wet/damp areas to upkeep. I kept my gas mower (as a beater), until August or so when I determined that the battery mower was able to handle everything, so I sold the gas mower. The Ryobi does take four 6mah x 40v batteries to complete the job. But, at the same time I'm not using 1.5 tanks of gas.
In the fall i bought a Ryobi battery operated snow blower. I haven't gotten to use it much, but so far I've been impressed. With all of the additional pathways I clear in the yard, it usually takes me about 1.5 hours of clearing snow. It takes about eight of the 40v x 6 mah batteries. But again, I'm not using 1.5 tanks of gas. I need a wet snow to test the Ryobi before I get rid of the gas blower.
Several years ago I went to battery operated chainsaws. I don't cut large stuff, or often so the lack of maintenance needed appeals to me. Additionally, I had a hard time pulling the gas saws.
I do still have a gas leaf blower for my pellet stove (leaf blower trick performed a couple of times per year), but that is its only use. I bought it used several years ago, don't use it much, and it hasn't needed maintenance so am not really looking for a replacement. I also have absolutely no issues starting it (like I did chainsaws) I have a separate electric leaf blower for yard work.
It would be far easier and cheaper to just repair the 8n. I too also have an 8n and it’s incredibly easy to work on especially with the FO4 manual.
This is the first time ive heard of a bcs tractor and that seems like the niftiest tool. I never knew they were a thing.
Trucks need to go back to being simple work vehicles and not flashy status symbols. The prices of them now are criminal. It’d be cheaper to put a new engine and transmission in my truck than get a new one. Most owners would be better served with an suv anyway.The model in that segment is profitable. Peak demand electricity prices are really high.
Most truck owners think they will need to tow something
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
Fix it!
nothing is simple now. Now if by simple you mean no options ok. But a touch screen is how everything will be run. There might be some E series that don’t have one yet. But going forward I expect those to get a standard touchscreen too. They are cheaper than gauges. That’s what the industry and consumers are after.
Yeah, every 3 years or so it just dies unexpectedly and needs something different. I am hopeless with engine repair, so I just hire somebody to figure it out. And yeah, as long as it runs its fine for what I need and it is paid for.
Yeah, it's a pretty cool little machine. I ripped up a half acre of pasture with the vertical plow (took about 12 hours), then made a few passes with the rototiller/harrow attachment (a couple of hours each pass initially) and now I have a nice flat field that gets a maintenance till to kill off the weeds that sprout (each pass about 1 or 1-1/2 hour, depending on the depth). I'm hoping to see it with wildflowers this fall.
Previously I used it to create all my perennial planting beds around my house. It makes short work of that task.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
In other news, the Canadadians are gonna import Chinese EVs.
Gift link to NYT.
Only 50k/year for now.
Gift link to NYT.
Only 50k/year for now.
However, can it handle a massive overnight buildout for data centers?
And if I was to put money on it, I'd say all 50,000 get sold and consumers ask the government to increase the number imported.
Cub Cadet has a unique design with their RZT Electric that addresses issues with hills. Front wheel steering works in unison with two electric rear wheel motors to provide better control on slopes. It works. It also has a steering wheel rather than right and left control levers, something my wife really likes.
Lucid's Interim CEO recently shared that advertising based on greenness rather than these aspects was probably a mistake.
Lucid CEO Says EV Buyers Want Value and Power, Not Green Lectures | EV.com
Speaking at CES 2026, Winterhoff said EVs need to be positioned as better cars, not just greener ones, if adoption is to accelerate.
ev.com
It may be a while before we see Chinese EVs in the US due to the same security concerns that grounded foreign drones here.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
Peak versus constant load. Smart chargers can load shift your charging times by two or three hours. I just saw 667 Tesla Powerwall batteries were active this morning all the same time at the utilities direction. That’s 6.3 Mwh. Roughly 20k miles of EV travel. Large data centers are probably 100s of Mw?? Our grid peaked at 10Gw last night. Minimum usage yesterday was 7Gw.
i think all one needs to do is say EVs have no transmissions or emissions sensors. But to many customers are not bothering to research reliability or value quality. Look Toyota has even made some Huygens quality mistakes. But so has GM. In the full size truck market that leaves Ram as the quality leader for current models!!Lucid's Interim CEO recently shared that advertising based on greenness rather than these aspects was probably a mistake.
Lucid CEO Says EV Buyers Want Value and Power, Not Green Lectures | EV.com
Speaking at CES 2026, Winterhoff said EVs need to be positioned as better cars, not just greener ones, if adoption is to accelerate.ev.com
Ram is far from a quality leader. Chryslers have never been known for reliability. Gm can’t seem to figure out that shutting down cylinders for “efficiency” and wiping out valves is not a good idea. That leaves Ford out of the big 3.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
That’s how bad it’s gotten. The GM 6.2 L is up to 1 million recalled units and maybe not fixed. The Toyota V6 is in thr same boat. I forget what he said about Ford.
The Lucid CEO is selling to highly affluent customers who often have different agendas. He does not speak for the general public IMO. People have all sorts of reasons for determining car purchases.
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