GM News: Rumorpile: GM Joins the Electric Van Fray

[William Maley]

While the focus on the electric vehicles have been on the ultra plush and quick models from the likes of Tesla, Audi, and Jaguar, there is a lot of work being done for electric delivery vans. The combination of reduced maintenance, low fuel costs, and an abundance of torque to deal with heavy loads make them a perfect to do deliveries in urban areas. Rivian is the most-well known player here with plans to build out a fleet of electric vans for Amazon. Another player is ready to join the fight.

Reuters reported yesterday that General Motors is working on a electric van for the commercial market. Five sources reveal that the van - codenamed BV1 - is expected to go into production late next year. It is expected to use Ultium battery technology that GM first talked about back in March. Utilizing this could solve one of the big issues with EVs, price. By switching Cobalt (expensive) for Aluminum (less expensive), GM says it will drop the cost of a battery to $100 per kilowatt-hour - making it around the same cost as regular gas powered van. Analysis done last year put the kilowatt-hour cost of a battery at $159. 

One item still being debated internally is whether the van will be sold as Chevrolet, GMC, or a new brand. 

When asked by Reuters, GM said it is “committed to an all-electric future and is implementing a multi-segment, scalable EV strategy to get there. At this time, we do not have any announcements to make regarding electric commercial vehicles.”

GM isn't the only company getting on the electric van train. Ford has announced plans for an electric version of the Transit to launch in 2022, and British startup Arrival which has the backing of Hyundai, currently has an order of 10,000 vans from UPS.

Source: Reuters

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[balthazar]

Rivian, having not built a single production vehicle, is certainly not [yet] a "player".

[G. David Felt]

Very exciting to see that the future will have quiet zero emission delivery vans in cities and urban areas. Should help with clean air as well as just keeping things quiet.

Right now it is so noisy with all the diesel UPS and FedEx vans moving around to deliver everything due to the pandemic.

[frogger]

58 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Very exciting to see that the future will have quiet zero emission delivery vans in cities and urban areas. Should help with clean air as well as just keeping things quiet.

Right now it is so noisy with all the diesel UPS and FedEx vans moving around to deliver everything due to the pandemic.

I think a lot of it is cultural with respect to how much people use their horns and just being obnoxiously loud too with their car radios or conversations etc..   Tokyo is very quiet for a city of almost 40 million people, amazing.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by frogger

[G. David Felt]

33 minutes ago, frogger said:

I think a lot of it is cultural with respect to how much people use their horns and just being obnoxiously loud too with their car radios or conversations etc..   Tokyo is very quiet for a city of almost 40 million people, amazing.

Very true, as one that went to college at Kobe University, I have spent much time in Tokyo and this is true of the whole country, people are raised to not impose their choices of music, auto noise, etc. on others around them and as such you do have traditional city noise without all the extraneous noise of music, open pipe auto's exhausts, etc.

The worst thing I remember before the Pandemic was the Harley open header bikes coming into the city of Seattle early in the morning for construction jobs and how loud and noisy it was. I felt for those living in the city that are woke up by the rude noise of the bikes or auto's that also have loud exhausts. 

EV's will bring much tranquility to the cities as well as the urban areas.

[frogger]

23 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Very true, as one that went to college at Kobe University, I have spent much time in Tokyo and this is true of the whole country, people are raised to not impose their choices of music, auto noise, etc. on others around them and as such you do have traditional city noise without all the extraneous noise of music, open pipe auto's exhausts, etc.

I haven't been but it is right up there on my bucket list to spend a few months. I do enjoy watching travel videos on youtube sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLAwF-SG0S-66r3VaUPDI59RmZ24uH0GU

 

 

[G. David Felt]

1 hour ago, frogger said:

I haven't been but it is right up there on my bucket list to spend a few months. I do enjoy watching travel videos on youtube sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLAwF-SG0S-66r3VaUPDI59RmZ24uH0GU

You will love all the vending machines, there is nothing you cannot get out of a vending machine. It is OK for kids to buy cigarettes and 5th of whiskey for their parents. There is far more respect for both youth and older adults than we see here in the US. We could learn a few things on having a better open society leading to respect for each other.

This is not to say they are perfect as they have their own issues also much like us.

[riviera74]

EV vans will work wonders for reducing smog in our cities, especially Los Angeles and the East Coast cities.

[USA-1]

Commercial EV vans make sense for deliveries as long as they know the average distance traveled in their specific routes and they should with GPS tracking that they use, but these vans will need 500+ mi. of range to cover most UPS or FedEx routes. Not gonna work sitting at a public charging station just to finish their route if over miles. I'm sure the GPS tracking will be able to advise the drivers to return to the distribution hub when at a certain threshold is reached, but what if you're the next guy in the route and now you have to wait until tomorrow because your drivers battery packs got too low? 

I can tell you as of right now that UPS being the largest parcel delivery company in the world was the WORST during the height of the pandemic the last 3 months, they're all screwed up, my regular UPS driver told me it's busy like Christmas, but no extra drivers or trucks to cover the increase in shipments. Nothing is on time, not even close and they aren't guaranteeing anything, no next day or two day. Meanwhile, FedEx, Ontrac, Amazon as well as even USPS were surprisingly pretty good at getting parcels and/or letters delivered on time or even early at times.

Edited June 5, 2020 by USA-1

[G. David Felt]

8 minutes ago, USA-1 said:

Commercial EV vans make sense for deliveries as long as they know the average distance traveled in their specific routes and they should with GPS tracking that they use, but these vans will need 500+ mi. of range to cover most UPS or FedEx routes. Not gonna work sitting at a public charging station just to finish their route if over miles. I'm sure the GPS tracking will be able to advise the drivers to return to the distribution hub when at a certain threshold is reached, but what if you're the next guy in the route and now you have to wait until tomorrow because your drivers battery packs got too low? 

I can tell you as of right now that UPS being the largest parcel delivery company in the world was the WORST during the height of the pandemic the last 3 months, they're all screwed up, my regular UPS driver told me it's busy like Christmas, but no extra drivers or trucks to cover the increase in shipments. Nothing is on time, not even close and they aren't guaranteeing anything, no next day or two day. Meanwhile, FedEx, Ontrac, Amazon as well as even USPS were surprisingly pretty good at getting parcels and/or letters delivered on time or even early at times.

All businesses that have EVs have fast chargers and as such your looking at 40 min for full recharge not waiting till the next day. STOP THE FUD! about EVs. A full recharge is very doable during a lunch break.

We already know that the average route for US mail is under 100 miles a day, so no problem going EV for USPS, Amazon also has stated that their average daily route is no more than 150 miles if Urban, on average 50 to 80 miles in the City, so again no problem for EVs. 

Multiple sites that have UPS or FedEx drivers posting that on average they drive 100 to 150 miles with anywhere from 150 to 220 packages to be delivered. I have a hard time believing that the delivery drivers taking the package the last step to the customers door are driving 300 to 500 miles a day. 300 to 500 miles a day makes no business sense as they would never have time to stop and deliver the packages. There are posts that many drivers are like USPS with routes under 100 miles a day but hundreds of packages that have to be delivered.

[USA-1]

1 minute ago, dfelt said:

All businesses that have EVs have fast chargers and as such your looking at 40 min for full recharge not waiting till the next day. STOP THE FUD! about EVs. A full recharge is very doable during a lunch break.

We already know that the average route for US mail is under 100 miles a day, so no problem going EV for USPS, Amazon also has stated that their average daily route is no more than 150 miles if Urban, on average 50 to 80 miles in the City, so again no problem for EVs. 

Multiple sites that have UPS or FedEx drivers posting that on average they drive 100 to 150 miles with anywhere from 150 to 220 packages to be delivered. I have a hard time believing that the delivery drivers taking the package the last step to the customers door are driving 300 to 500 miles a day. 300 to 500 miles a day makes no business sense as they would never have time to stop and deliver the packages. There are posts that many drivers are like USPS with routes under 100 miles a day but hundreds of packages that have to be delivered.

Calm down EV soldier I'm not bashing EV's I'm just thinking outside of the box, try it sometime. I'm talking UPS or FedEx, those guys push 400-500 mi. every day especially right now and the huge battery packs on these trucks will never fully recharge during a lunch break if nearly depleted. My UPS driver just told me it's nuts and not enough time in the day to get all packages delivered, some have (and this is no joke) 800 stops/deliveries thrown on them in a day and at least half or more get pushed off for the next day and others for the next day and so on and so on. Deliveries will have to be scheduled around the trucks range just like current full BEV's and don't forget the extra weight of these truck will eat up the batteries faster as well. I still think the GM Voltec platform was the best technology having the best of both world's, but it was never marketed correctly or at all really. As for USPS yes those guys are ready for EV's with shorter routes and the long overdue replacement needed of the ancient small box trucks. If the UPS and FedEx trucks were the Voltec platform they could have EV mode around town and diesel mode on the freeway where batteries get depleted the fastest.

Have you owned or regularly driven a BEV or PHEV yet? I have, so I am speaking first hand with how they act.   

[G. David Felt]

2 hours ago, USA-1 said:

Calm down EV soldier I'm not bashing EV's I'm just thinking outside of the box, try it sometime. I'm talking UPS or FedEx, those guys push 400-500 mi. every day especially right now and the huge battery packs on these trucks will never fully recharge during a lunch break if nearly depleted. My UPS driver just told me it's nuts and not enough time in the day to get all packages delivered, some have (and this is no joke) 800 stops/deliveries thrown on them in a day and at least half or more get pushed off for the next day and others for the next day and so on and so on. Deliveries will have to be scheduled around the trucks range just like current full BEV's and don't forget the extra weight of these truck will eat up the batteries faster as well. I still think the GM Voltec platform was the best technology having the best of both world's, but it was never marketed correctly or at all really. As for USPS yes those guys are ready for EV's with shorter routes and the long overdue replacement needed of the ancient small box trucks. If the UPS and FedEx trucks were the Voltec platform they could have EV mode around town and diesel mode on the freeway where batteries get depleted the fastest.

Have you owned or regularly driven a BEV or PHEV yet? I have, so I am speaking first hand with how they act.   

One your wrong, the semi truck drivers might cover 400 to 500 miles in a day, but not the local deliver folks.

Your also wrong on the battery pack charging full on a lunch break. All the current 300 mile battery packs fully recharge in under an hour on DC fast chargers.

I agree with you that the GM Voltec should never have been a car and they first VOLT should have been a CUV and they should have had it in multiple CUVs by now.

Spent the last 5 years commuting to work daily in a Volt as a team member has one and it is great other than no one can sit behind me cause there is not enough room and my knees hit the volt dash.

[USA-1]

1 hour ago, dfelt said:

One your wrong, the semi truck drivers might cover 400 to 500 miles in a day, but not the local deliver folks.

Your also wrong on the battery pack charging full on a lunch break. All the current 300 mile battery packs fully recharge in under an hour on DC fast chargers.

Quote

I agree with you that the GM Voltec should never have been a car and they first VOLT should have been a CUV and they should have had it in multiple CUVs by now.

Spent the last 5 years commuting to work daily in a Volt as a team member has one and it is great other than no one can sit behind me cause there is not enough room and my knees hit the volt dash.

 

Do you mean, "you're" the one who's wrong?

These aren't going to be the standard 66kWh car battery packs like the Bolt has with 260mi. range. The charge time and range differs greatly with the type of onboard charger whether Level 2 or Level 3 DCFC and the kWh rating of the charger and the battery pack. Remember I worked for Blink Network here in Phoenix so I'm well versed with EV's and the chargers which are all onboard each car and each manf. is different. These vans will more than likely use the GM Ultium 800v 200kWh packs to make up for the extra weight of the van and the cargo, so charging will be much longer than 30 min. to get to full recharge, definitely not during your lunch break like you originally stated above.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/whats-driving-gms-reported-plans-to-develop-a-commercial-electric-van/

 

Hightower just ripped the front seats out and sat in back of his CVCC, we already talked about this David!

https://images.app.goo.gl/Jd3nBP8gKTEassBj7

Edited June 6, 2020 by USA-1

[daves87rs]

I would like to see EV versions of the current vans.....

[67impss]

And you probably will as they aren't in any hurry to enginer a new model unless this is the vehicle that brings the change. You know GMs famous bean counters it'll probably be the required electrics and an infusion of aluminum and a new grill and tailights.

[G. David Felt]

11 hours ago, 67impss said:

And you probably will as they aren't in any hurry to enginer a new model unless this is the vehicle that brings the change. You know GMs famous bean counters it'll probably be the required electrics and an infusion of aluminum and a new grill and tailights.

All the press release from GM says these new electric delivery / people transportation vans will be on the newest EV platform.

GM Fact Sheet_EV Architecture 030320.pdf

[smk4565]

Electric van makes a lot of sense because most delivery vans, especially in urban areas aren't doing a ton of miles per day.  Also for things like contractors, plumbers, electricians, etc that don't put a lot of miles per day on a van.  

Plus with a van you can stick batteries in the floor easily, from a packaging standpoint is is easy on design.  From a maintenance standpoint, an EV needs less maintenance and thus less downtime for what is a work or delivery vehicle.