Portland’s plans for a zero-emission delivery zone sound like a breath of fresh air
You will soon be able to catch a breath of fresh air in downtown Portland. The city is planning to establish a zero-emission delivery zone to promote a safe and cleaner way of moving goods in the area. The project will be the first in the nation of its kind.
Oregon’s largest city, Portland, is home to over 650,000 people (with over 2.5 million in the metro area).
With plentiful parks, bike paths, and hiking trails, Portland is perhaps best known for its eco-friendliness and sustainable mindset. In 2020, the Portland City Council declared a climate emergency, setting a new goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
With transportation accounting for 40% of carbon emissions in the Portland area, city officials new something had to be done.
To advance its goal, Portland has announced it will test a new zero-emission delivery zone, becoming the first in the US to implement a project of sorts. Although trucks represent less than 5% of the city’s vehicle fleet, they generate 24% of all transportation related carbon emissions.
The proposed project spans 25 acres of downtown Portland where city and federal office buildings, county courthouse, commercial offices, and parks are present.
Portland reveals nations first zero-emission delivery zone
This spring, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) was awarded almost $2 million from the US Department of Transportation to fund the zero-emission delivery zone. With the new funding, PBOT will change some truck-loading zones to zero-emission vehicles only.
No passenger vehicles will be impacted by the changes. According to Portland-based KGW News, officials said part of the project’s plans is to:
Reduce traffic from heavy trucks in the downtown area and replace those trips with zero-emission vehicles, such as electric vans and trucks, cargo bikes, or hydrogen fueled vehicles.
In addition, Portland’s downtown area has been identified as one of the areas with the highest concentration of collisions involving trucks (2,2267 collisions betwen 2014 and 2018) according to the 2040 Portland Freight report. The move will cut down the number of trucks allowed in the area.
Dylan Rivera, a spokesperson from PBOT said, “No one has done this, this way, in the US.” Although the final details are still being ironed out, Rivera said those who violate the new rules will be subject to a parking citation.
PBOT says it will incentivize the movement of “clean goods” through using an existing hub where big delivery trucks can transfer goods to smaller zero-emission vehicles, such as local fleets of EVs of electric bikes, for deliveries in the zone.
The project will kick off phase one this summer, running for 18 months through funded the SMART program, established under the Inflation Reduction Act. PBOT says it may then apply for phase two to build on its success.
Electrek’s Take
Like many US cities, deliveries in the city of Portland are skyrocketing due to the rise in home delivery and e-commerce. This means more frequent and shorter trips, often idling in between. Furthermore, these packages are also almost always delivered by big vans or trucks.
According to research from the World Economic Forum, by 2030, the number of delivery vehicles on the road in the top 100 global cities will rise by 36%. More importantly, the average diesel delivery truck emits 18.7 tons of CO2 each year with frequent stops making it worse on communities.
A zero-emission delivery zone, such as the one Portland will test this summer, will begin to reduce emissions that lead to health conditions like cardiovascular damage, asthma, and more in cities.
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After years of waiting and many false starts, Formula E is finally going to debut its mid-race charging system, which will give cars a quick boost of energy charging at a rate much faster than current road cars can.
For years now, we’ve been hearing about FIA plans to introduce charging stops to electric racing.
In gas car racing, some series allow mid-race fueling and some don’t. The World Endurance Championship, which runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans, obviously needs to fill up several times during the race. But Formula 1, which hosts shorter races, eliminated mid-race fueling in 2010.
Plans to bring mid-race charging to Formula E started in 2021, when the FIA started kicking around plans for an Electric GT racing series with 700kW charging.
But the FIA already had one electric racing series, Formula E, which had debuted in 2014. At the time, each driver had two cars, and would swap mid-race to a fresh car with new batteries.
Battery-swapping had been considered, but it would be too complicated to set up at temporary race facilities in city downtown areas, as many Formula E tracks are.
Then, in 2018, Formula E debuted a new “Gen 2” car which had a big enough battery not to need a charge mid-race, and later a “Gen 3” car in 2022, which had much stronger regenerative braking, capable of 600kW of braking power. Gen 3 also has an “Attack Mode” feature that lets cars unlock additional power for a short period each race, adding to strategy and mixing up the race order.
That 600kW charging ability could also be used for mid-race charging, so Formula E said that it was working on a system to allow for this. It announced that mid-race charging would come at some point in the 2023 season, but then pushed back those plans until 2024, and pushed them back again, this time with an uncertain date.
The issues involved building the charging system in temporary facilities and ensuring safety of the system (and of pit stops in general, which is always a concern when cars are driving rapidly near people). But after winter testing prior to this season, Formula E now says the system is ready to go.
So, once again, Formula E is ready to announce that mid-race charging is definitely, totally, positively, 100% certain at the upcoming Jeddah E-Prix, on February 14-15 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Formula E thinks that proving this high-power charging technology could help road cars to charge more quickly, which could have myriad benefits for electric cars in general.
The series is calling the system “Pit Boost,” and it will consist of a 34-second pit stop that provides around 10% additional charge to the cars (about 4kWh). While 10% isn’t a lot, 34 seconds is also not a lot of time. For comparison, one of the fastest-charging cars out there, the Ioniq 5, can charge from 10-80% in 18 minutes, which means 10% charge takes 2.5 minutes – five times as long as Formula E cars will manage the feat.
The stop will be mandatory for all drivers to take at some point in the race, and will mean new strategy options for drivers. Taking the stop means getting more energy, which means that your car won’t have to do as much energy saving to get to the end of the race – but it also means giving up your position on track, which can be hard to get back if you do it late in the race.
However, we’ve never seen it happen before, so it will be interesting to see what kind of strategic options develop.
If you’re interested in seeing how it turns out, tune in to the Jeddah E-Prix on February 14-15 to see what happens. It’s a doubleheader race weekend, with night races both on Saturday and Sunday, February 14-15, at 5pm UTC, 9am PST, 12pm EST, and 8pm local time. You can check out how to watch the race in your area by going to Formula E’s “Ways to Watch” section. In the US, Roku should be the most reliable way to watch.
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JackRabbit, the maker of pint-sized electric microbikes, is back with a new product designed to quickly recharge their batteries from pure, uncut photons mainlined into an e-bike directly from the sun. In true independent charging form, the Solar Charging Kit from JackRabbit keeps riders rolling even when there’s not a convenient AC outlet in sight.
Unveiled this week, the Solar Charging Kit consists of a single folding solar panel and a tiny voltage converter that is configured to output 42.0V, which is the exact voltage required by JackRabbit’s little e-bike batteries. There’s also an added USB-A and a USB-C charging port for powering other devices in addition to charging JackRabbit batteries.
“This Solar Charging Kit plugs directly into your bike,” explained the company, “letting you recharge without needing an outlet, but with a speed comparable to the charger that comes with the OG/OG2 (42V, 2A).”
That would mean the panel outputs around 80W of solar power, which the company says can recharge its batteries in just three hours. That fairly quick recharging speed is helped by the fact that JackRabbit’s batteries are a mere 151 Wh, or around a third of the size of most e-bike batteries.
If that sounds small, then you’re right – it is. But JackRabbit is all about going micro, offering barely 25 lb rideables that are easy to store and bring on adventures, even when they aren’t actually being ridden.
With small batteries that fit under the 160Wh limit for many airlines in the US, the batteries can be quickly charged and taken to the widest number of locations. And for riders that want to go further than a single 10-mile (16-km) battery will allow, extra batteries are small enough to fit a pants pocket. The company also offers much larger Rangebuster batteries, though they won’t pass by TSA and make it onto an airplane in your personal item.
It sounds like the Solar Chargking Kit should be able to charge up JackRabbit’s large RangeBuster batteries, though likely in more than three hours.
The $349 Solar Charging Kit is a bit pricier than building something similar yourself, but it’s also safer and more convenient than hacking together your own battery charger since it’s designed to work with JackRabbit’s batteries right out of the box.
Technically it’s only inteded for JackRabbit’s micro e-bikes (themselves technically seated scooters, even if they look and feel more like a typical bike), but it’d probably work for just about any 36V e-bike that requires 42.0V to charge.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen solar charging kits for electric bikes, and it’s a trend that is certainly appreciated by outdoors and camping enthusiasts, festival goers, or anyone who finds themself and their bike spending extended periods in the great, sunny outdoors.
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