Why would we *NOT* replace government fleets with electrics?

[Jimmy Higgins]

If electric cars didn't have an environmental cost to manufacture, sure, yet they surely do have that cost.

Well thank goodness internal combustion engine cars don't have an environmental cost.

Where did I imply that?

I am talking about replacing existing cars with new ones and the environmental cost of that.

So replacing existing inefficient cars which run on fossil fuels with far more efficient vehicles is a fool's errand?

An argument can be made that the cost of emissions and materials and waste is definitely an issue, as is money used to purchase them.

If the Government has a fleet of 20 year old mail trucks, replacing them with more efficient vehicles is an easy decision.
If the Government has a fleet of 5 year old mail trucks, replacing them with efficient vehicles is an easy decision to not do.
If the Government has a fleet of 10 year old mail trucks, replacing them with more efficient vehicles is not an easy decision.

 

[Metaphor]

Something that bothers me about replacements is the seeming downplaying of total environmental cost (as compared to carbon cost).

My car is 18 years old, and my brother in law is encouraging me to buy an electric vehicle. But what about my current vehicle? There's nothing wrong with it. Surely all the steel and energy that went into its manufacture needs to be counted, and all the energy (and lithium) that goes into an electric vehicle needs to be counted.
Surely it would be better, in terms of total environmental cost, to run my car until it is goes absolutely kaput?

Depends on emissions.

EDIT: And surely the same with many other appliances, like fridges? Surely keeping an inefficient fridge going is a lower total environmental cost than buying a brand new one. Either you will sell or give away your old fridge for its inefficiency to be used by someone else, or it will go to landfill, with all the materials (and refrigerant) with it.

These are viable arguments, but I just get the feeling that you are using them as excuses.

Excuses? I don't need an "excuse" to buy or not buy a new car. (In fact, I have never bought a new car, they've always been used).

Also, are older fridges that much more inefficient?

Well, the scale is possibly different compared to cars, but the comparison is an illustration.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Reduce is the biggest component here as it limits needing to waste energy recycling.

But 'reduce' is my entire point!

My brother-in-law currently has a Tesla (I don't know what model, I don't do "cars"). Yet he has replaced his car every two or three years for decades. His smug satisfaction with his current car does not seem to be justified, especially given that all the other cars he had had nothing wrong with them.

Personally, I'm not sold on electric vehicles. The tether is an issue for me. Get a vehicle with low emissions and very good mileage. I wish the hybrid system could have worked out, but it kind of was abandoned. The Prius got you up there in mileage and had seating for four.

Electric vehicles have a number of problems that are rarely raised. For one, many people live in apartments with no place for their car to be recharged at night ("just charge it overnight, the range won't be a problem!")

There's also, for want of a better word, an ableist component to EVs. I am very, very tall and it took me years to find a car (my current car) that accommodated my frame. EVs don't come in different sizes to accommodate different people, but petrol cars do.

But even size were not an issue, the wasteful aspect of replacing perfectly functioning things still bothers me.

I could afford another car. I've even visited a dealership once or twice in the past few years. But each time, my brain says "how can you possibly justify half a year's gross salary to replace something that does not need replacing"?

So, I guess my implied question to the OP is: why does the American postal system replace its vehicles every few years? Why not replace them when and if they need to be replaced?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, I guess my implied question to the OP is: why does the American postal system replace its vehicles every few years? Why not replace them when and if they need to be replaced?

There are vehicle replacements every few years. As in every 3 or so years, they replace 20 year old mail trucks.

 

[Metaphor]

So, I guess my implied question to the OP is: why does the American postal system replace its vehicles every few years? Why not replace them when and if they need to be replaced?

There are vehicle replacements every few years. As in every 3 or so years, they replace 20 year old mail trucks.

Twenty years old seems a respectable age, that is much older than I thought the fleet would be.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, I guess my implied question to the OP is: why does the American postal system replace its vehicles every few years? Why not replace them when and if they need to be replaced?

There are vehicle replacements every few years. As in every 3 or so years, they replace 20 year old mail trucks.

Twenty years old seems a respectable age, that is much older than I thought the fleet would be.

Well, that is what happens when you get your info from the Murdochs.

 

[Metaphor]

So, I guess my implied question to the OP is: why does the American postal system replace its vehicles every few years? Why not replace them when and if they need to be replaced?

There are vehicle replacements every few years. As in every 3 or so years, they replace 20 year old mail trucks.

Twenty years old seems a respectable age, that is much older than I thought the fleet would be.

Well, that is what happens when you get your info from the Murdochs.

Yes, the "Murdochs" have been drip feeding me lies about the fleet age of the USPS for years.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If electric cars didn't have an environmental cost to manufacture, sure, yet they surely do have that cost.

Well thank goodness internal combustion engine cars don't have an environmental cost.

Where did I imply that?

I am talking about replacing existing cars with new ones and the environmental cost of that.

So replacing existing inefficient cars which run on fossil fuels with far more efficient vehicles is a fool's errand?

You are begging the question. What makes the current vehicles "inefficient"? What makes the new ones "far more efficient"? What percentage of the electricity in the US is generated from fossil fuels? (60%). How have you calculated the cost of the mining of rare earth elements in? What will happen to the fleet of vehicles that the postal office will be replacing? Are they going to be junked or put on the market to be driven by other people?

Cars have to be replaced eventually, of course. But replacing functioning cars and trucks according to a set timetable instead of as needed does not seem environmentally sound to me.

You seem to be arguing that cars do not have to replaced so long as they are functioning.

A 1974 Plymouth that produces 85 hp and gets 12 miles to the gallon is - apparently - just as good as a 2022 Kia that generates 200 hp and burns no fuel.

Burns no fuel? The Kia doesn't obey the laws of physics?

I am asking for a holistic appraisal for the replacement of vehicles - and indeed most durable goods.

So long as the former is "functioning," replacing it with the latter is not environmentally sound.

You keep saying 'functioning' as if it were a strange word. What is strange about it? Are you making the opposite claim? That any improvement in mileage or efficiency justifies immediate replacement? I can't think you are, so you must agree that at some point a replacement is 'worth it', and at other points, no, it would not be worth it.

Cars have to be replaced eventually, but according to you they must only be replaced only when the wheezing rust-buckets are finally unable to get to the end of the driveway, and at that reluctantly. Your Ford Cortina is every bit as good as a Toyota Yaris, and we need to stop the progress of these "efficient" vehicles lest we lose some part of our past?

You appear to have a strange prejudice and preconception of me as some kind of vintage muscle-car revhead. You could not be further from reality.

I'm just trying to figure out how you figure that replacing older outdated cars with newer more efficient vehicles is a bad idea.

He thought we were replacing mail trucks every few years. That'd be insane.

 

[IIDB Staff]

Discussion of personal cars split to its own thread here

Replacing ICE cars with Hybrid or Electric: Pros and Cons​

 

[Hermit]

...the wasteful aspect of replacing perfectly functioning things still bothers me.

It would be wasteful if perfectly functioning things were thrown away. USPS does not throw its trucks away. It sells them. 20 years after it bought its Grumman LLVs for $12,000 ($30,000 in today's money) it sells them at government auctions for around $5,000.

I sold my second truck, which I bought brand new, after four and a half years. It did not go to waste. Almost two decades later I saw it still doing the rounds. The difference between what I sold it for and what I had to pay for its replacement (also brand new) was minimal. Another advantage was that except for having to replace a blown brake valve non-routine expenditure was zero. So, looking at the life cycle cost of equipment, or the amount of waste involved, there is no difference when or how often you replace it. The difference lies in who finishes up bearing the cost.

 

[Metaphor]

...the wasteful aspect of replacing perfectly functioning things still bothers me.

It would be wasteful if perfectly functioning things were thrown away. USPS does not throw its trucks away. It sells them. 20 years after it bought its Grumman LLVs for $12,000 ($30,000 in today's money) it sells them at government auctions for around $5,000.

I sold my second truck, which I bought brand new, after four and a half years. It did not go to waste. Almost two decades later I saw it still doing the rounds. The difference between what I sold it for and what I had to pay for its replacement (also brand new) was minimal.

That doesn't really make sense: why would someone have bought your truck when they could have bought something much better for a minimal amount more?

Another advantage was that except for having to replace a blown brake valve non-routine expenditure was zero. So, looking at the life cycle cost of equipment, or the amount of waste involved, there is no difference when or how often you replace it. The difference lies in who finishes up bearing the cost.

But then all the petrol-using USPS trucks will still be using petrol. The carbon cost is still there unless the trucks are destroyed.

 

[Hermit]

...the wasteful aspect of replacing perfectly functioning things still bothers me.

It would be wasteful if perfectly functioning things were thrown away. USPS does not throw its trucks away. It sells them. 20 years after it bought its Grumman LLVs for $12,000 ($30,000 in today's money) it sells them at government auctions for around $5,000.

I sold my second truck, which I bought brand new, after four and a half years. It did not go to waste. Almost two decades later I saw it still doing the rounds. The difference between what I sold it for and what I had to pay for its replacement (also brand new) was minimal.

That doesn't really make sense: why would someone have bought your truck when they could have bought something much better for a minimal amount more?

Because someone could not get the finance to buy/hire-purchase/lease a brand new truck? That was the position I was in when I bought my first one in 1988 or 9. It was seven years old, cost me $12,500 to purchase and a fortune in non-routine running costs. The latter easily exceeded the cost of Diesel, tyres and other routine running costs. I bought a computer a few months after I bought the truck, stuffed the relevant figures into a spreadsheet and created at "what if...?" scenarios. Lotus 123 was very good for that. The result of the analysis was the recognition that I needed to lease a brand new truck as soon as I could get the finance for one, which I did two and a quarter years after I became a LOD. The figures worked out. By the 1991/2 financial year I had slipped into the 46% (+Medicare levy) income tax bracket despite the extra tax deductibles available to sole traders that are off limits to wage or salary earners.

Another advantage was that except for having to replace a blown brake valve non-routine expenditure was zero. So, looking at the life cycle cost of equipment, or the amount of waste involved, there is no difference when or how often you replace it. The difference lies in who finishes up bearing the cost.

But then all the petrol-using USPS trucks will still be using petrol. The carbon cost is still there unless the trucks are destroyed.

Correct, but I was addressing the mistaken notion you have on wastefulness. Your brother in law is not creating extra waste by selling his cars after two or three years rather than 16 or 18, nor am I under any delusion that I am less wasteful by driving around in the 19 year old jalopy I bought ten years ago