Japan Post gets electric cars

our country should follow Japans lead here

I love my Prius, our country should follow their example

Watch the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car. It'll make you sick.

I totally agree that we should follow Japan's lead. I would buy an electric car if I had the option ...

Vivian, our country is a mess in terms of how the postal serivce allocates cars to their drivers. Most have to buy their own and pay for the special conversion. I haven't seen the documentary "who killed the electric car" but I disagree with some of the assertions. A number of factors led to the death of the american electric car, the lack of NiMH battery technology due to the chevron texaco pattent, the limited range of the car and the inability to recharge the car at work and the general problem that most common electric cars weren't all that great/comfortable in cold climates.

Most of those problems are solvable or are simply going away. Hopefully my Prius will last until they work out the bugs of the next best thing.

I want one.

Progress. But so slow.

The wheel turns slowly, but at least it keeps turning!

Thanks for the great news, Sam. I echo the enthusiasm for doing the same here, wherever here is for anyone on Gather.

Christopher B.: Thanks for the info on cars for US postal workers- I had no idea (even though I have a friend who is a postman and I also love John Prine). I don't think I agree with all of your comments about the problems with electric cars and the assertions in Who Killed the Electric Car. Sam has discussed this a lot. There are plenty of electric cars running around the world and quite a few in the US. The deal with the battery patent was much more a case of people being blocked from using the technology than anything else, as far as I can tell. Now, batteries are being guaranteed for the life of the electric car, so things have already improved to the practical point. As for the cold, well, maybe it's a problem where you live. Cold weather performance can be an issue with diesel, too (along with particulates in the emissions). In any event, a plug-in hybrid vehicle gives you the best of all worlds. See Sam's writing on these, too.

Good News Sam ~ At least there is hands-on progress being made somewhere.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Blessings ~
Rene

good article Sam

It makes sense for such a densely populated nation as Japan to do this. They've done other some other smart things too like using nuclear plants for the majority of their electrical generation. Expensive in the short run, it reduced their oil imports by a huge factor. Of course they don't have the same enviro fanatics there as we do and were able to get them built in a fraction of the time it would take us...

Thanks all for commenting! Electric vehicles make a lot of sense for an organization like Japan Post, because many of its cars travel only short distances. Japan imports all its oil and with a doubling of oil prices in one year, Japan Post has done the maths. Government supports the move, not only to help reduce emissions, but also to help the Japanese electric car industry take off.

As I also mentioned in the article, similar moves have been made in France, where Renault has teamed up with Nissan to build electric cars for Project-Better-Place which is making progress in Israel and Denmark. Nissan, Japan's third-biggest automaker, is owned 44% by Renault, and is aiming to strengthen its line-up through a mini-vehicle (Pajero-like) to be built by Mitsubishi under the Nissan brand. The companies are exploring opportunities for further cooperation in light commercial vehicles. In a joint-venture, Nissan and NEC are investing $115 million over three years to manufacture lithium-ion batteries. Toyota has sold a million hybrids cars including 680,000 Priuses in total in the US. Honda hybrids sell well and Honda is ready with its Clarity hydrogen car.

There is a rapidly-closing window of time left for US companies to benefit from their leads in nanotechnology, IT-design, marketing clout, etc. There are many technologies at stake here, not just batteries, but also plug-in and V2G-technology, solar panels, fuel cells, etc. If we wait much longer, more global corporate headquarters will move to Paris, Tokyo, London and the Middle East.

This is a perfect application, regenerative braking on electric vehicles is the only way to go for tasks like mail delivery. We are only 100 years behind on our electric vehicle infrastructure, every advance is a relief.

NEW DELHI: Government has started giving a 30 per cent rebate on purchase of small electric cars in a bid to reduce air pollution in India's capital where every day about thousand new vehicles hit the roads.
Indiatimes.com

I've been watching for a brief on France's La Post fleet and how it is working.

As reported by Autobloggreen, Japan's Kanagawa Police station is evaluating Mitsubishi iMiev electric cars for employment in the force.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), Japan's largest utility, has developed a device that powers an electric car to run 40 km (25 miles) on a five-minute charge and 60 km (37 miles) on a 10-minute charge. [Source: Reuters]