3 thoughts on “Spotted: Amazon Testing Electric Delivery Van”
He spent a lot of time commenting on the [absence of the] self-drive feature, but my first thought was of the big jump from ICE. These vans spend a lot of time in idling in traffic, idling at intersections and definitely idling at the curb.
Even with self-drive, you still need a human to schlep the packages up and down walks, so they’re not saving much on human labor. Besides which, delivery vans naturally (and generally acceptably) short-term park in a lot of “naughty” places (along colored curbs, across my driveway, close to corners and by fire hydrants), much of which requires human judgment.
It is good to see this but I am not that excited. Shenzhen, reportedly, has 16,000 electric buses and 22,000 electric taxis on the road. We in the West are playing catch-up from a long way back.
He spent a lot of time commenting on the [absence of the] self-drive feature, but my first thought was of the big jump from ICE. These vans spend a lot of time in idling in traffic, idling at intersections and definitely idling at the curb.
Even with self-drive, you still need a human to schlep the packages up and down walks, so they’re not saving much on human labor. Besides which, delivery vans naturally (and generally acceptably) short-term park in a lot of “naughty” places (along colored curbs, across my driveway, close to corners and by fire hydrants), much of which requires human judgment.
It is good to see this but I am not that excited. Shenzhen, reportedly, has 16,000 electric buses and 22,000 electric taxis on the road. We in the West are playing catch-up from a long way back.
A loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way back.
China has about 500,000 EV buses now, still going up by 10,000 every 6 weeks. The US has fewer than a thousand, going up by maybe 200 a year.
When do we catch up?