The manufacturer,
“Streetscooter”
was purchased by
Deutsche Post
( German Post )
in 2014.
Deutsche Post
bought the company,
with the support of
the eco-loving press,
to polish up its
'green' image.
But now Streetscooter
will be scrapped.
The German media blame it
on “bad management”
by the large company.
But Germany's small,
yellow electric vehicles
just barely made it back
to the post office,
especially in winter,
and only when the heater
was turned off.
The management
of the Swiss Post
are also ending
their experiment
with those delivery
vehicles.
Pushing an
electric vehicle
loaded with letters
back to the
local post office,
when the battery
is empty, simply
is not possible.
You have to plan
shorter routes
( especially in winter ),
which reduces
delivery efficiency.
Since letters are only
delivered during the day,
the e-vehicles can be
conveniently charged
at night.
But if you need to
recharge them
during working hours,
you don’t have
time for that.
This failure followed
the Berlin E-bus
experiment failure:
Lithium battery buses
could only run
from 8 to 12 a.m.,
then diesel vehicles
had to take over.
This double infrastructure
is twice as expensive.
The city administration
of Berlin can waste money
on a double bus fleet,
and then hike taxes
to pay for that.
But Deutsche Post
is a business group
that has to make a profit.
Deutsche Post had to
manage a similarly
inefficient double fleet
of about 13,000 e-vehicles.
The electric delivery
vehicles broke down
too often,
and were replaced
by diesel-powered
delivery vans.