Here is Staples experience managing their electric delivery trucks:
http://www.greenfleetmagazine.com/article/3201/what-staples-expects-from-all-electric-medium-duty-work-trucks

'WT: When do medium-duty electric trucks make sense for a fleet? What's the
ideal application?

PAYETTE: What's not a good fit is if you have to take the truck out on the freeway and drive 20 miles at 55 mph. That will drain your battery too quickly.

The ideal setup is to be able to pull out of a terminal and make the first delivery within a mile of where the vehicle left. We have several of those situations at Staples.

In Los Angeles, for example, 180 of our routes operate between 35-70 miles per day. That's why electric vehicles are perfect for the L.A. market, as well as many other inner city ­metropolitan-type markets.

The shorter routes are actually more harmful for the diesels. We found that with some of our diesels in the L.A. market, we'll pull a download off the engine control module (ECM) and find the ECM called for a regeneration of the diesel particulate filter (DPF) 119 times, but was only able to complete the re-gen three times because the vehicle was not running long enough for the 20 minutes required to clean that filter out.

If we're making 50-60 deliveries per day, the truck is running about eight minutes between stops. The driver must pull the truck over to the side of the road, put it in park, hit the exhaust re-gen button, and let it go through a 20-minute re-gen.

By pulling those diesels out of the short-mileage routes and incorporating electric trucks, you're helping the diesel vehicles run cleaner and putting the electric in its optimal operating environment.

WT: What is the upgrade cost going to the all-electric versus diesel power?

PAYETTE: When you factor available federal and state funds, the cost of these electric trucks is roughly two times the cost of a conventional-powered diesel truck.

WT: How long do you anticipate it will take for you to recoup that investment?

PAYETTE: Understand that over the life of the vehicle, the equation in place today will change. Fuel prices will change; the electric rate I'm paying is likely to change. However, if you use today's numbers, here's what you're looking at:

If you're going to run a diesel truck on a 100-mile route at 10 miles per gallon, that's roughly $35 in diesel fuel to cover the route. In California, by charging electric trucks during off-peak hours, we're paying $9 in electricity to run the same 100-mile route. So that's about $8,900 per year for fuel and $2,300 in electricity.

Since we plan to keep these units in service at least 10 years, the overall differential is $66,000 per truck - if fuel remained $3.50 per gallon or $0.10-$0.12 per kilowatt hour. That alone offsets the incremental cost of the electric vehicle over 10 years without even talking maintenance.

WT: What's different with maintenance?

PAYETTE: On an equivalent 100 mile-per-day diesel vehicle, we spend roughly $900 per year in preventive maintenance - oil changes, filter changes, anti-freeze adds, and eventually transmission oil changes. With the electric vehicles, we take that down to $250 per year.

The electric trucks are only equipped with four grease fittings and no engine or transmission oil. The truck must still be taken to look at brake lines and other wear components that may be cracked. Overall, there is virtually nothing that goes wrong with these things.

You're running air disc brakes that, with regenerative braking (a system that leverages the motor to slow the truck when you take your foot off the accelerator, reducing wear on the brakes, while also restoring charge to the battery), gives us two to four times the brake life over a conventional set of hydraulic brakes.

The electric motors are expected to last about 20 years. By the fifth year, you get into what's called a "battery-­refresh" program. The truck is removed from service and the large battery pods are pulled off each side. They're opened up and disassembled. There are individual battery cells inside each pod, which are put through a complete regenerative process, one at a time. Any bad [cells] are removed, new ones are put in, and the battery pack is reassembled. They're good to go for another five years after that.

The estimated cost for this five years from now is between $4,000-$5,000. That's strictly an estimate, which assumes you need to replace at least 10 percent of the batteries on board.'

Electric delivery vehicles are viable, although of course there are currently subsidies, but at this stage that seems to me fair enough - there is no expectation that these will continue forever.

The fleets need to plan a bit more, since they are using a mix of long range capable vehicles and short range electric, but really we are way beyond the stage of wondering if it works.

It does.

That's a great interview you linked, Dave. Reading the whole piece was certainly worth my time.

What a waste of time, listening to some CEO greenwash with EEV from the state of elsewhere emissions.

Not too long ago LA threatened to boycott Arizona. A Arizona power commissioner said fine, we will start with electricity.

California has already solved its air pollution problem without BEV.

“KP, your a barometer of wrong. ”

Let me check the current air quality in California @ http://www.airnow.gov/

Not wrong! There is no plague of unhealthy air. Air quality is mostly good with a little of moderate pollution.

So why would fear mongers say there is a plague?
“Ways to Donate”

So how are the scam artist over at the American Lung Association doing?

“Every year, more than 36,000 California kids will start smoking. Preventing youth smoking saves lives, since 90 percent of smokers began smoking by the age of 18.”

@Kelly

Lots of people know the difference between non-profits organizations that carefully and effectively use our contributions or tax dollars.

Maybe fear mongering is a good way to raise money.

“the article charts reflect well on low EV pollution levels AND economics. ”

The LCA is about ghg emissions not general pollution. Economics are not discussed at all.

Let me check the current air quality in California @ http://www.airnow.gov/

When you post a link over and over to real time measurements, it is true.

Some believe if you tell a lie often enough some will believe it. Of course if you tell the truth often enough some will learn.

Read the LCA! The life of the batteries and the time it takes to charge them are not important factors.

It is the source of power and the energy lost heating the battery during charging and discharging the prevents BEV from reducing ghg.

BEV are a poor choice to solve any problem.

“So we've got BEVs at 80%, FCEVs at 30% and ICEVs at 20% (with 0% renewable energy input). ”

BS Bob is very good at making up stuff but not a clue about engineering. The amount of energy that a BEV uses is very easy to measure. How many kwh did you use? With all those BEV out there you would think that some of them would tell.

For example, just bought 13.5 gallons for my work truck with 10% coming from ethanol.

Last time checked, it does not take much oil to make ethanol. NG, coal, and power do provide some energy.

There are many LCA on on ethanol. Much better than hauling batteries around and a lot cheaper.

Way to go American farmers.

If nothing is changed, this may (will) be the first time that the next generation (our children) life expectancy will be lower than ours.

Air pollution is not the only factor but it is a contributing factor. Industrial and junk foods are certainly important factors.

This is not a dream or guess but facts based on recent data from industrial countries.

Will this trend be reversed or will it increase at a higher rate with our grandchildren?