Electric van manufacturer Canoo announced a highly visible deal with the United States Postal Service (USPS), which will see the USPS acquire a handful of right-hand drive versions of the company’s LDV 190 delivery van.
Canoo announced that the USPS will purchase six (6) battery-electric Canoo vehicles. In its official press release, the company said that it was “honored” to participate in the post office’s evaluation of potential suppliers as the USPS moves towards the “groundbreaking electrification and modernization” of its national delivery fleet.
Yeah… EVs have been out for a while now. They’re generally holding up ok still. The one exception being the Nissan Leaf and some really early ones, neither of which had a battery management system to keep the battery at a decent temperature in extreme hot/cold weather.
And it turns out that EVs don’t have as many parts, and many things are easier to design because they don’t have to run off an engine’s accessory belt (fewer moving parts). No muffler, catalytic converter, oxygen sensors, or pollution control valves. No head gasket, timing belt, fuel injectors or spark plugs. The alternator is replaced with a solid-state DC-DC converter. The transmission is a set of gears that don’t need to shift. Even the brake pads hardly get used because regenerative braking is the first thing to slow your car down, putting energy back into your battery.
Cool, huh?