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The USPS needs 180,000 new delivery vehicles, automakers gearing up to bid

Winning the New York City Taxi of Tomorrow tender was a huge prize for Nissan, even though the company is still working through the process of claiming its prize. The United States Postal Service has begun the process to take bids for a new delivery vehicle to replace the all-too-familiar Grumman Long Life Vehicle, and that will be a much larger plum for the automaker who wins it, perhaps worth more than six billion dollars. The Grumman LLV is an aluminum body covering a Chevrolet S-10 pickup chassis and General Motors' Iron Duke four-cylinder engine. The USPS bought them from 1987 to 1994, and the 163,000 of them still in service are a monumental drain on postal resources: they get roughly ten miles to the gallon instead of the quoted 16 mpg, drink up more than $530 million in fuel each year, and their constant repair needs like the balky sliding door and leaky windshields have led the service to increase the annual maintenance budget from $100 million to $500 million. A seat belt is about as modern as it gets for safety technology, and the USPS says that assuming things stay the same, it can't afford to run them beyond 2017. Last year it put out two triage requests for proposals seeking 10,000 new chassis and drivetrains for the Grumman and 10,000 new vehicles. The LLV is also too small for the modern mail system in which package delivery is growing and letter delivery is declining. The service says it doesn't have a fixed idea of the ideal "next-generation delivery vehicles," but it listed a number of requirements in its initial request and is open to any proposal. Carriers have some suggestions, though, saying they want better cupholders, sun visors that they can stuff letters behind, a driver's compartment free of slits that can swallow mail, and a backup camera. The request for information sent to automakers pegs the tender at 180,000 vehicles that would cost between $25,000 and $35,000 apiece, and it will hold a conference on February 18 to answer questions about the contract. GM is the only domestic maker to avow an interest, while Ford and Fiat-Chrysler have remained cagey. Yet with a possible $6.3 billion up for grabs and some new vans for sale that would be advertised on every block in the country, we have a feeling everyone will be listening closely come February 18. We also have a feeling the LeMons series is going to be flooded with Grummans come 2017. News Source: Wall Street Journal, Automotive News - sub.

Chevy Volt replacement battery cost varies wildly, up to $34,000

There's a growing hubbub in the plug-in vehicle community over what looks like some ridiculously cheap replacement batteries for the Chevrolet Volt going up for sale. GM Parts Online, for example, is selling a replacement Volt battery with an MSRP of $2,994.64 but, with an online discount, the price comes down to $2,305.88. For the 16-kWh pack in the 2012 Volt, that comes to a very low $144.11 per kilowatt hour (kWH). But is it a real deal? How can it be, when a Chevy dealer may quote you a price of up to $34,000 to replace the pack? For a 16-kWh Volt pack, $2,305.88 comes to a very low $144.11 per kWh. But is it a real deal? Battery packs in alternative propulsion vehicles are usually priced by the kWh and, historically, they've been thought to be in the range of $500-per-kWh for OEM offerings. Since automakers are understandably secretive about their costs, we still don't know what the real number is today, but we do know it varies by automaker. Tesla, for example, has said it pays less than $200-per-kWH at the cell level but, of course, a constructed pack would be more. Whatever is going on, li-ion battery prices are trending downward. So, $144.11 certainly sounds great, but what's the story here? Kevin Kelly, manager of electrification technology communications for General Motors, reminded AutoblogGreen that GM Parts Online is not the official GM parts website and that, "the costs indicated on the site are not what we would charge our dealers or owners for a replacement battery. There would be no cost to the Volt owner if their battery needs replacement or repair while the battery is under the eight year/100,000 mile limited warranty coverage provided by Chevrolet." A single price tag also can't be accurate for everyone, Kelly said. "If the customer needs to have their battery repaired beyond the warranty, the cost to them would vary depending on what needs to be replaced or repaired (i.e. number of modules, which specific internal components need replacement, etc.)." he said. "So, it's hard for us to tell you exactly what the cost would be to the customer because it varies depending on what might need to be repaired/replaced. As a result, the core charge would vary." But, is the $2,300 price even accurate for anyone? Thanks to a reader comment, we see that this similar item on New GM Parts makes it look like the lithium-ion modules that Kelly mentioned – where a lot of the expensive bits are – are not included.

Is this GM's next electric crossover?

GM made headlines this week when CEO Mary Barra presented the company's electrification and automation plans at the Barclays Global Automotive Conference in New York. "We are committed to a future electric vehicle portfolio that will be profitable," Barra said, which could be taken as a jab at Tesla. In the presentation ( PDF here), though, we see a new vehicle in a slide titled "Leveraging existing BEV platform to expand in near term." The vehicle, seen above, accompanied the captions "New CUV entries" and "two entries by 2020." Is this a sneak preview of an upcoming electric crossover from GM? The image seems too realistic and intentional to be a random placeholder. If this is, indeed, an upcoming battery-electric CUV based on the Bolt, the question remains: Will it be a Chevy or a Buick? It has no visible badging, but it shares DNA from both brands. As Inside EVs points out, though, it does bear a resemblance to the Chevrolet FNR-X concept unveiled in Shanghai earlier this year. With two CUVs on the way, it's not unthinkable that there could be a version for each brand. In addition to this slide, the presentation includes plans for an "All new multi-brand, multi-segment platform" launching in 2021. The all-new modular battery system will cost less than $100 per kWh, providing higher energy density and faster charging. The platform will host at least nine different vehicles, including a compact crossover, seven-seat luxury SUV and a large commercial van. GM has said it will launch 20 new EVs by 2023, and that it targets 1 million EV sales per year by 2026. Many of those sales will be in China. Related Video: