[infinotize]

Agreed, particularly in an urban setting. In NYC the streets are quite literally with small to medium trucks, which are all almost certainly in violation of noise and pollution requirements. A fleet-type electric medium duty truck with swappable batteries would be awesome and I think governments should be bending over backwards to incentivize them.

[Symbiote]

Do you mean small vans like this one [1]?

That's a significant electric delivery vehicle fleet, though from almost 10 years ago -- I don't know what happened since.

[1] http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/responsibility/case-studies/arc...

[jameshart]

You reminded me that electric home grocery deliveries have a longer history in the UK than people might think - growing up in the 1980s in the UK daily milk deliveries via an electric milkfloat were absolutely ubiquitous, and had been since the 1940s. The distinctive whining sound of a milk float pulling away, milk bottles chinking, was the definitive sound of a town waking up in the morning - diesel-motored vans chugging around first thing would have been incredibly annoying.

[kuschku]

Those are everywhere here nowadays. UPS, DHL, etc also almost exclusively use electric vehicles in and around Hamburg, which is really amazing.

[ilikeatari]

They are still used in the utility fleet space. However, they did not perform that well (range, reliability, high cost etc). It really was a natural fit for a Utility industry because of their access to the cheap electric power.

[infinotize]

Oh that's cool, I'd never heard of it. I'm surprised there doesn't see much momentum in the area, although maybe there is a good practical reason for it.