G. David Felt

Yes, I am making an Assumption, but I cannot see that of all pickup sales in 2020 which is 2,863,938 are used like a work truck hauling full size lumber, cement, etc. construction stuff. Trucks are pretty common drive now for everyone and common sense would say that with the 10's of millions of trucks in the US of the 10-'s of millions registered that they are not all used the way you use it for your business / work. I see so many trucks in the neighborhood where I live and I rarely see them with anything more than stuff they pickup from Fred Meyers, Home Depot, Haul stuff to the dump, etc. The bulk of folks do not use them for 4x8 sheets of plywood or sheetrock, etc. 2020 US Pickup Truck Sales Figures By Model | GCBC (goodcarbadcar.net)

Clarification, of those that buy a full size truck, I bet you will find that up to half of the truck purchases use them for home gardening and as such are more than covered by a small bed.

I honestly get the 5.5 and 4.5 beds for a third to half of America that will use it for Home Depot runs and camping. but for those that need an actual work truck, 8ft and 6ft beds are to me a requirement. I suspect Chevrolet / GMC and Ford will deliver on that for the real EV trucks for sure.

Will be interesting to see what they end up doing since all this is, is assumptions. To quote my dad: Assumptions can always bite you in the ASS since ass is the start of assumption. ?

American Pie

@oldshurst442 Your Country is making News!!! Breaking News Canada has announced today a $2.75 Billion dollar package of buying electric buses and charging infrastructure. This package of spending is a commitment to buy 5,000 electric school buses over the next five years and charging infrastructure at the bus barns. This is a small part of a much larger change over as the Canada government has approved a $14.9 billion public transit investment to move to a zero emissions public bus system. Lion Electric, a Canadian bus production company is committed to building both electric school buses and public transit buses as Canada pushes a massive change over from Diesel to electric. This investment comes with a couple strings attached. Companies that supply these electric buses to the school districts and cities for public transit must be Canadian based and the various parts much be majority built in Canada. As such the government says this will drive innovation and jobs at the various existing and new electric auto companies. Canada announces $2.75 billion investment in zero-emissions buses and charging infrastructure (electrek.co)

Seems that Rivian does have a long bed king cab pickup truck mule based on pictures that Inside EV got ahold of. The following picture is what is being used to make this assumption that Rivian is looking at longer bed lengths since it would only make sense to offer multiple bed lengths in the truck market. Here you can clearly see a much shorter door than what is on the launch Crew Cab Pickup. As such, photoshop to the rescue and we get the following: This Rivian R1T Extended Cab Long Bed Truck Rendering Looks Sleek (insideevs.com)

Latest on a Coast to Coast drive in the Mustang Mach-E

Edmunds and Car and Driver according to InsideEV are saying that the EPA needs to change the way EV's are tested for auto mileage after testing shows Tesla FAILS to deliver on their battery pack range over and over. Tesla And EPA Are Wrong When It Comes To Range, Says Ben Sullins (insideevs.com) Edmunds Tested: Electric Car Range and Consumption | Edmunds Very cool Video of a F-150 Rivian powered truck racing Suzuki's ATV's.

Breaking News Hyundai has released the investigation showing that the Kona EV fires are caused by folded Anode tabs. As such, Hyundai has announced they will use the SK Innovation batteries in the new Ioniq 5. This sets up a battle between LG and SK as well as a bigger problem due to SK stealing billions of dollars worth of battery trade secrets for use in their battery packs. As such SK was banned from building and selling battery packs in the US which means they would have to shutdown their $2.6 Billion dollar plant they just built with a planned total $5 billion in the Georgia Battery production plant now being up in the air depending on what the current administration does about the past administrations fine and ban on the SK plant. This new SK Plant is supposed to supply battery packs for the Ford F-150 EV Truck and the VW ID.4 EV. Hyundai Officially Confirms Folded Anode Tab Caused Kona EV Fires (insideevs.com) Interesting news on Rivian and how their charging port opens as well as the push to allow them to sell directly to consumers in Georgia rather than have to build stores or dealerships.

Breaking News Oshkosh has invested $25 million in Microvast who will be the supplier of the battery packs for the new USPS BEV's. Oshkosh Corporation - Oshkosh Corporation partners with Microvast to strengthen electrification capabilities

Breaking News Montgomery County, Maryland which operates 200 schools and a fleet of over 1,400 diesel buses has signed a contract with Highland Electric Transportation for phase 1 of a massive bus fleet transformation. Over the next four years, Highland Electric Transportation will deliver 326 electric school buses and electrify all five of the MCPS's bus depots including a V2G or vehicle-to-grid component. The buses will have a 226 kWh capacity power train from Proterra with a 135 mile range. Charged EVs | Proterra to deliver over 320 V2G-equipped school buses to Montgomery County, Maryland - Charged EVs

Piano

On What side?

Very exciting review on the VW ID.4 with both positives and negatives that I agree with and that the reviewer was a 6'6" tall long leg guy who actually tested being comfy in the front seat and then getting out and testing the back seat. Cool Read. Hopefully VW will take his input to heart as they get ready to start production here. 2021 VW ID.4: 5 hits and misses, up close with the electric car for the masses (greencarreports.com) With the New 2022 Bolt released, 2021 Bolts have gotten crazy cheap especially for Costco members. Get $3,000 up front cash to use as a down payment and $107 a month lease rate with 12,000 miles a year for 36 months. Cheapest new-car lease is all-electric: Chevy Bolt EV lease deals as low as $107 per month (greencarreports.com)

Tesla chooses to go with a proprietary standard and yet has already converted to the SAE J1772 for Europe and China. Nissan still pushing their dying, almost dead CHAdeMO standard, but has stated they will also go with the SAE connection for their first mainstream BEV under Infiniti label. Other than Tesla, everyone else is supporting the SAE standard. Who is not, as I have not seen anyone else announce a different connector for Level 1, 2 and 3 chargers. I have seen you can get a converter on Amazon for allowing your Tesla to connect to the SAE chargers. SAE J1772 - Wikipedia Search for 'J1772' - SAE International

Summer

THANK YOU, Yes this is a excellent example and plenty of parallels can be taken from this. The one thing to point out is that technology from 49 to the 1980's was so minuscule compared to where technology is at today. I do not see a 30 year slow tech change that happened for the lowly bar code. We already have much superior electric motors and battery tech that is changing much faster. I believe just like the computer industry that started slow in the 90's with consumer models and then exploded in the last 15 years will be a much more modern way that BEVs will happen IMHO.

That gets my UP VOTE 1,000,000 times!

In reading the USPS news release it says the first ones will be delivered 2023, not when in 2023, but just the start of the 50,000 will start in 2023. In regards to the last purchase, thanks for including the date, I thought I had read somewhere that it was a 30 year purchase compared to this 10 year contract.

A little Cherry Bomb while working.

@balthazar @oldshurst442 Honestly, I think ZETA is wanting this contract to go to one of their supporting companies so they can direct sales to their own agenda. Right now anything would be better than what the USPS is currently driving and burning down. Sad that we went this long on these auto's. I am honestly glad this contract is a 10 year contract and not like the last one that was 3 decades long contract to keep buying old, out of date junk.

Business Insider is reporting that Tesla is bleeding market share almost 100% to Ford as people dump their Tesla and buy a Mach-E. This report comes from Morgan Stanley, This same time a year ago Tesla had 81% market share in the USA for EV sales. Year later Tesla is only 69% EV market share. Sales are up 40% for BEV sales. Morgan Stanley is projecting Tesla to drop below 60% EV market share this year 2021 and to drop below 50% in 2022 as more and more EV auto choices come out from the various OEMs. Tesla Is Bleeding Battery EV Market Share To Ford's Mustang Mach-E: Morgan Stanley | Markets Insider (businessinsider.com) Ford Mach-E had 3,739 units sold in February 2021 compared to just 238 units sold in January 2021 and a symbolic 3 in December 2020. Currently the Mach-E accounts for 2.4% of Fords auto sales in the U.S. Ford Mustang Mach-E U.S. Sales Exceed 3,700 In February (insideevs.com)

Thoughts on what a Russian companies idea for a two door Body on Frame blazer or K5 would sell? Новый Chevrolet Tahoe 3-door - КОЛЕСА.ру – автомобильный журнал (kolesa.ru) Web site above is in English and the details are great on this. I personally love this idea. NEWS BREAK CEO of Stellantis Carlos Ravares has announced they are engaged in dialogue with the Cherokee Nation of it's use of the Name on two of their SUV models. The CEO has confirmed that they will do what ever is needed to resolve this up to the point of potentially dropping the name and renaming the affected SUVs. Jeep is open to dropping Cherokee name, says CEO | Fox Business

Chevrolet fans, want a Raptor equal? Yes you can as PaxPower now builds the Chevrolet Jackal as a Raptor Beating truck for those that want the ultimate off road Chevrolet Truck. PaxPower Jackal the answer to the missing 442? PaxPower V8 Raptor Diesel Raptor F150 Jackal SIlverado Ranger Raptor Course some might like PaxPower Raptor conversion on the Ranger.