The Coming Disruption of Transport

[crs1026]

It's also intended as a middle mile solution. You could still have a delivery worker on foot or on a bike running the last couple hundred meters to a.door. It would be substantially more productive than the current model of waiting at a restaurant.

Very short distance distribution makes a lot of sense (I can imagine a tube from Pearson to the Gateway Postal Terminal, for instance, sized around standard air freight containers) - but the moment one proposes something that snakes through the city, say from an Amazon center in the west end to Liberty Village, there will be so many questions asked....what happens when the first lithium battery on the drone catches fire? Where does the heat and smoke from that event go? etc etc

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

As a more general comment, we need to reverse the public policy paradigm for logistics , which currently is

"we found cheap land in Halton, so that's where we are building our logistics hub, and if you in Halton want the jobs and tax revenue from that you will have to build and maintain the roads to get us there, and we want a break on property taxes and utility payments"

to government e.g. Halton saying

"if you want us to build and maintain the roads, you will have to locate yourselves 5 kms from your rail or air supplier, and not 25 kms, so we only have to build a fraction as much highway.... oh and by the way, you are paying the cost of those roads"

at which point, the idea of private infrastructure for the logistics needs becomes much more attractive.

- Paul

 

[afransen]

If we aren't willing to build pipes to distribute hydrogen, no way we're building this. The economics just wouldn't pencil out. That's a lot of capital expenditure to avoid rather little delivery cost.

It's probably a good solution for enclosed neighbourhoods like college or large corporate campuses or even HOAs. But that's probably the limit of scale.

Isn't the idea that utilities are hanging their hats on that the natural gas network can be repurposed for hydrogen and therefore they are not a sunset industry? I'm skeptical about hydrogen for residential use, but there will still be a need for some industrial distribution.

The network effects for this solution are quite local, so you really just need some jurisdictions that are open to the idea. They've put in 1 mile in public ROW already, using various excavation technologies, mainly trenching and directional drilling.

 

[kEiThZ]

Isn't the idea that utilities are hanging their hats on that the natural gas network can be repurposed for hydrogen and therefore they are not a sunset industry? I'm skeptical about hydrogen for residential use, but there will still be a need for some industrial distribution.

A good chunk of that is green washing hoping to desperately avoid electrification. The rise of all-electric homes and offices isn't great for the industry. And with hydrogen they can't simply just repurpose the types. Beyond something like 10-15% blend of H2, there's the risk of hydrogen embrittlement causing problems with the pipes. Realistically, shipping a whole lot of hydrogen is going to require substantial capital expenditure relaying a ton of pipes or the installation of reformation units that can turn natural gas into hydrogen at a delivery point. Nobody is really willing to pony up which is (one reason) why hydrogen is struggling to get off the ground.

The network effects for this solution are quite local, so you really just need some jurisdictions that are open to the idea. They've put in 1 mile in public ROW already, using various excavation technologies, mainly trenching and directional drilling.

Not saying it can't be done. Just saying that's a lot of capital expenditure to avoid what comes to a few cents in delivery cost per package. I can't see that scaling beyond some niche scenarios.

 

[afransen]

Not saying it can't be done. Just saying that's a lot of capital expenditure to avoid what comes to a few cents in delivery cost per package. I can't see that scaling beyond some niche scenarios.

Last mile is the most expensive part of delivery. More than a few cents! Uber Eats delivery costs are at least several dollars if not upwards of 10.

 

[kEiThZ]

Last mile is the most expensive part of delivery. More than a few cents! Uber Eats delivery costs are at least several dollars if not upwards of 10.

A simple thought exercise. How much would you be willing to pay up front to avoid Uber Eats and Amazon fees for life? And would that be enough to get a pipe from your home to the main line down your street or the main pipeline to your condo? And then there's the shared cost of that main line.

 

[crs1026]

A simple thought exercise. How much would you be willing to pay up front to avoid Uber Eats and Amazon fees for life? And would that be enough to get a pipe from your home to the main line down your street or the main pipeline to your condo? And then there's the shared cost of that main line.

A very intriguing thought. Even above ground, it might not be an intrusive amount of infrastructure to equip a development such as the Waterfront or Humber Bay - huge number of residents, but possibly only one tube branch to each building. And the tube would only need to manage vehicles carrying things the size of a banker's box.

Might take a while for an industry standard to develop that would enable delivery right to the floor. I'm not sure how people in 80-storey condos today manage all the elevator traffic to pick up their Ubereats deliveries in the lobby, but no reason the technology couldn't extend all the way to the floor or actual doorway, I suppose.

- Paul

 

[afransen]

A simple thought exercise. How much would you be willing to pay up front to avoid Uber Eats and Amazon fees for life? And would that be enough to get a pipe from your home to the main line down your street or the main pipeline to your condo? And then there's the shared cost of that main line.

I think a pipe to the home is a bit fanciful. But condo lobby, or corner drop box?

 

[lenaitch]

It would be interesting to see how Amazon, Uber Eats, Skip the Dishes and all the others would come together to share such a platform.

Here's a though; pick up the damned food yourself or cook at home. Is the outside urban world that an onerous a place now?

 

[kEiThZ]

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/05/former-gm-chief-engineer-says-byd-seagull-ev-is-clarion-call-to-u-s-auto-industry/

The Chinese are definitely coming for the bloated legacy automakers.

 

[kEiThZ]

I think a pipe to the home is a bit fanciful. But condo lobby, or corner drop box?

The problem with this idea is that, it then negates the idea of saving a lot of money on delivery fees. You have Amazon Prime and Uber One to get stuff delivered to your home. Not to a corner drop box.

 

[afransen]

The problem with this idea is that, it then negates the idea of saving a lot of money on delivery fees. You have Amazon Prime and Uber One to get stuff delivered to your home. Not to a corner drop box.

If I could order something and get it from the condo lobby in 15 minutes for free vs paying $10 for instacart to bring it to my door, I could perhaps be persuaded to deliver it myself. Maybe Amazon could hire people who live in the building to bring it from the lobby to the door for an extra fee?

The point is that there could be value in more mid-mile applications.

 

[Bojaxs]

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/05/former-gm-chief-engineer-says-byd-seagull-ev-is-clarion-call-to-u-s-auto-industry/

The Chinese are definitely coming for the bloated legacy automakers.

No one is buying Chinese made EVs. "Made in China" has too much stigma in the western world.

Belgium's ports drowning under glut of Chinese electric cars: 'Some are parked here for a year, sometimes more'

Due to China's overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.

www.lemonde.fr

 

[afransen]

No one is buying Chinese made EVs. "Made in China" has too much stigma in the western world.

Belgium's ports drowning under glut of Chinese electric cars: 'Some are parked here for a year, sometimes more'

Due to China's overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.

www.lemonde.fr

People laughed at Toyota and Hyundai, too.

 

[kEiThZ]

No one is buying Chinese made EVs. "Made in China" has too much stigma in the western world.

Belgium's ports drowning under glut of Chinese electric cars: 'Some are parked here for a year, sometimes more'

Due to China's overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.

www.lemonde.fr

Don't mistake that glut for "nobody". They went from under half a percent of Europe's EV marketshare to almost double digits in something like 3-4 years. That's not nobody. They have been over supplying Europe recently and it's causing the kind of news you just posted. But that doesn't mean nobody is buying those cars. They are also setting up plants in Europe itself. They are definitely there for the long haul.

Also, the "Western World" includes more than just North America and the EU. Wait till you see how the Chinese automakers are catching on in Latin America and Russia (this one for obvious reasons). They are also taking legacy brands to the woodshed all over Asia itself.

It's easy for legacy automakers to keep the Chinese automakers out of their home markets in the US, EU, Japan and South Korea. But they will have a much harder time stopping them elsewhere. And most legacy automakers can't survive in the long term without those other markets. Heck, until very recently, China itself was as or more important than the US as a market.