THE WAY I HEARD IT

If you want to be a decent writer, you need to be an avid reader.  I have no idea as to who said that but it’s nothing more than common logic.  I’ve been an avid reader for years.  The question remains—am I a decent writer?  You have to decide that.

With that being said, I just completed reading the latest book by Mike Rowe. Mr. Rowe is the executive producer and host of the hit TV program “Dirty Jobs”. I’ve seen several episodes and can see why people love to tune in.  In his new book, he presents thirty-five (35) stories representing mysteries, short ones at that, about people you know.  The stories are patterned after Paul Harvey’s great radio series “The Rest of the Story”.  Movie stars, madmen, heroes, individuals gone completely nuts, they are all there in the book.  The book contains memoirs filled with surprising revelations, sharp observations, and behind-the-scenes and moments drawn from his remarkable life and career.

BIOGRAPHY:

Mr. Rowe’s performing career began in 1984, when he faked his way into the Baltimore Opera to get his union card and meet girls, both of which he accomplished during a performance of Rigoletto. His transition to television occurred in 1990 when — to settle a bet — he auditioned for the QVC Shopping Channel and was promptly hired after talking about a pencil for nearly eight (8) minutes. There, he worked the graveyard shift for three (3) years, until he was ultimately fired for making fun of products and belittling viewers.

Thanks to QVC, Mike became practiced at the art of talking for long periods without saying anything of substance, a skill that would serve him well as a TV host. Throughout the ’90s, Mike had hundreds of jobs and relished his role as a chronic freelancer with lots of time to loaf around. Then, through a horrible miscalculation, he pitched a three-hour special to the Discovery Channel that ended up resulting in the show “Dirty Jobs.” Viewers liked it and Discovery responded by ordering thirty-nine 39 episodes — a shocking commitment that Mike was contractually obligated to honor. For the first time in his career, Mike went to work with a vengeance.

Over the next decade, Mike would become known as “the dirtiest man on TV.” He traveled to all fifty (50) states and completed three hundred (300) different jobs, transforming cable television into a landscape of swamps, sewers, ice roads, coal mines, oil derricks, crab boats, hillbillies, and lumberjack camps. For this, he has received both the credit and the blame.

Eventually, Mike was overcome with a strange desire to give something back. On Labor Day 2008, he launched mikeroweWORKS which is a PR campaign designed to reinvigorate the skilled trades. He’s since written extensively about the country’s relationship with work, the widening skills gap, offshore manufacturing, infrastructure decline, currency devaluation and several other topics for which he has no actual credentials. He once gave a TED Talk on the Changing Face of the Modern-Day Proletariat.  In May 2011, he testified before the United States Senate Commerce Committee about the importance of changing perceptions and stereotypes around blue-collar work and was asked back to testify to the House Committee on Natural Resources in 2014. In late 2013, Mike and Caterpillar worked together to launch Profoundly Disconnected, a new initiative focused on technical recruitment as well as the book Profoundly Disconnected®, A True Confession From Mike Rowe.   All the proceeds from the sale of the book go to the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, to be used for Work Ethic Scholarships and advocacy campaigns surrounding American manufacturing.

REVIEWS:  I thought the book was a great look into the lives of interesting people and the life of Mr. Rowe.  If you read my posts, you know when doing a book review, I like to include comments of others who had read the book also.  Here we go.

As you can see, people love the book.  One other thing—the font size is large enough so you do not have to squint if you are over thirty years old.  Spacing is adequate and the stories are concise and short enough to read two or three, rest your eyes and carry on with the next one or two.  In conclusion, I can definitely recommend this book to you.  Poignant, funny, sad in some ways, uplifting; all of those adjectives do apply.

AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH

I published this post several months ago but certainly feel, in light of our cancel culture, it needs to be republished. You might take another look.

Amusing Ourselves to Death is the title of an incredibly good book by Mr. Neil Postman.  The book is a marvelous look at the differences between Orwell and Huxley and their forecast as to conditions in the early 20^th century.  Now, you may think this book, and consequently the theme of this book, will be completely uninteresting and a bit far-fetched but it actually describes our social condition right now. 

I’m going to do something a little different with this post.  I’m going to present, in bullet form, lines of text and passages from the book so you will get a flavor of what Mr. Postman is trying to say.  Keep in mind, these passages are in the book and do not necessarily represent my opinions—although very close and right on in some cases.  (Please see the quotes about our Presidential elections.)  Here we go.

• What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no one who wanted to read one.
• The news of the day is a figment of our technological imagination.  It is, quite precisely, a media event.  We tend to watch fragments of events from all over the world because we have multiple media whose forms are well suited to fragmented conversations.    Without a medium to create its form, the news of the day does not exist.
• Beginning in the fourteenth century, the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers. With the invention of the clock, eternity ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human events. 
• A great media shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense.   Under the governance of the printing press, discourse in America was different from what it is now—generally coherent, serious and rational; and then how, under the governance of television, it has become shrivelled and absurd.  Even the best things on television are its junk and no one and nothing seems to be seriously threatened by it.
• Since intelligence is primarily defined as one’s capacity to grasp the truth of things, it follows that what a culture means by intelligence is derived from the character of its important forms of communication.
• Intelligence implies that one can dwell comfortably without pictures, in a field of concepts and generalizations.
• Epistemology is defined as follows:  the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.  With that being the case, epistemology created by television not only is inferior to a print-based epistemology but is dangerous and inferior.
• In the “colonies”, literacy rates were notoriously difficult to assess, but there is sufficient evidence (mostly drawn from signatures) that between 1640 and 1700, the literacy rate for men in Massachusetts and Connecticut was somewhere between eighty-nine (89%) percent and ninety-five (95%) percent. The literacy rate for women in those colonies is estimated to have run as high as sixty-two (62%) percent.   The Bible was the central reading matter in all households, for these people were primarily Protestants who shared Martin Luther’s belief that printing was God’s highest and most extreme act of Grace.
• The writers of our Constitution assumed that participation in public life required the capacity to negotiate the printed word.  Mature citizenship was not conceivable without sophisticated literacy, which is why the voting age in most states was set at twenty-one and why Jefferson saw in universal education America’s best hope.
• Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Age of Exposition began to pass, and the early signs of its replacement could be discerned.  Its replacement was to be the Age of Show Business.
• The Age of Show Business was facilitated by the advent of photography.  The name photography was given by the famous astronomer Sir John F. W. Herschel.  It is an odd name since it literally meant “writing with light”.
• Conversations provided by television promote incoherence and triviality: the phrase “serious television” is a contradiction in terms; and that television speaks in only one persistent voice-the voice of entertainment.
• Television has found a significant free-market audience.  One result has been that American television programs are in demand all over the world.  The total estimate of U.S. television exports is approximately one hundred thousand (100,000) to two hundred thousand (200,000) hours, equally divided among Latin America, Asia and Europe.  All of this has occurred simultaneously with the decline of America’s moral and political prestige, worldwide.
• Politicians in today’s world, are less concerned with giving arguments than with giving off impressions, which is what television does best.  Post-debate commentary largely avoids any evaluation of the candidate’s ideas, since there were none to evaluate. (Does this sound familiar?)
• The results of too much television—Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least-informed people in the Western world.
• The New York Times and the The Washington Post are not Pravda; the Associated Press is not Tass.  There is no Newspeak here. Lies have not been defined as truth, no truth as lies.  All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and amused into indifference.
• In the world of television, Big Brother turns out to be Howdy Doody.
• We delude ourselves into believing that most everything a teacher normally does can be replicated with greater efficiency by a micro-computer.
• Most believe that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion.  When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether. It has been estimated that the total revenue of the electric church exceeds five hundred million U.S. Dollars. ($500 million).
• The selling of an American president is an astonishing and degrading thing, it is only part of a larger point: in America, the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is the television commercial.   We are not permitted to know who is the best President, or Governor, or Senator, but whose image is best in toughing and soothing the deep reaches of our discontent.  “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”
• A perplexed learner is a learner who will turn to another station.
• Television viewing does not significantly increase learning, is inferior to and less likely than print to cultivate higher-order, inferential thinking.

CONCLUSION:

You may agree with some of this, none of this or all of this, but it is Mr. Postman’s opinion after years of research.  He has a more-recent book dealing with social media and the effect it has on our population at large. I wanted to purchase and read this book first to get a feel for his beliefs.

                                                                                                                                        

CHARLES H. COOLIDGE

Do you know how many Congressional Medal of Honors winners the state of Tennessee has had?  I did not either.  The answer—thirty-two (32). The Department of Defense officially recognizes thirty-two (32) recipients from the state of Tennessee. In fact, with the exception of the War or Terror, a Tennessean has received the Medal of Honor in every conflict since it was first created in 1861.  One of those is Mr. Charles H. Coolidge. 

A photograph of Mr. Coolidge is shown as follows:

A photograph of the Medal of Honor presentation is shown below.  Please note that a Lieutenant General is presenting the award.

A more recent picture is below. 

Charles H. Coolidge died Tuesday, April 6 at the age of 99. He was four months shy of his 100th birthday on August 4. His death leaves only one surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient, ninety-seven (97)-year-old Woody Williams of West Virginia.  I had the great honor of ushering at the funeral and it was one of the most, if not the most, dignified events I have ever witnessed.  His burial took place at the Chattanooga National Cemetery.

Technical Sergeant Charles Henry Coolidge earned the Medal of Honor in 1944 for his heroic conduct during the U.S. Army’s epic struggle to capture heavily defended German positions in the Vosges Mountains region in eastern France. Over the course of four harrowing days from October 24-27, 1944, Coolidge, serving with the 36^th “Texas” Division’s 141^st Infantry Regiment, led a determined but inexperienced American infantry in a mission to support their battalion’s right flank against strong enemy forces. Then, with no officers present, Coolidge stood firm in beating back repeated German attacks backed by armor, frequently exposing himself to enemy fire and even advancing into the teeth of enemy assaults to break them up with hand grenades. Finally, facing overwhelming odds, Coolidge directed a tactical withdrawal, preventing what might have become a rout and saving many of his men’s lives. He was the last to leave his position. For these actions, Coolidge was awarded the Medal of Honor on June 18, 1945.

The auditorium was packed to celebrate the life of Mr. Coolidge with many men and women in uniform attending, both noncommissioned and commissioned officers.   The entire event was very impressive and indicated everyone’s great respect and admiration to a man who lived an exemplary life.  His son, Lt. General (Ret) Charles H. Coolidge, Jr. gave the eulogy providing a stunning account of a man who did it right as a husband and a father.    He will be missed. 

PERSEVERANCE

Some of the information for this post comes from the publication TechBriefs, March 2021 edition.

We have just witnessed one of the most awesome engineering feats in the history of our species.  The landing of the spacecraft Perseverance on the planet Mars was accomplished with remarkable precision. After approximately seven months and three hundred million (300) million miles, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18^th at approximately 3:55 p.m. EST.  In other words, NASA had the landing down to the minute.  From NASA, Perseverance left Earth traveling at a speed of twenty-four thousand six hundred (24,600) miles per hour or about thirty-nine thousand (39,000) kilometers per hour. The trip to Mars is approximately three hundred (3000 million miles from Earth. During that journey, the engineers working on the Perseverance mission had the ability to change the speed, direction and trajectory of the rover to make its arrival to the Red Planet an absolutely precise event. 

JEZERO CRATER:

NASA chose the Jezero Crater as the landing site believing the area was once flooded with water and possibly home to an ancient river delta.  Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in the Jezero Crater during one or more of wet periods in the life of the planet.  The Jezero Crater tells a story of the on-again, off-again nature of the wet past of Mars. More than three point five (3.5) billion years ago, river channels spilled over the crater wall and created a lake. Scientists see evidence that water carried clay minerals from the surrounding area into the crater lake. Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in Jezero during one or more of these wet times. If so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed or shoreline sediments. Scientists will study how the region formed and evolved, seek signs of past life, and collect samples of Mars rock and soil that might preserve these signs.  The site looks something like the following:

You will notice we have been there before. Jezero Crater is twenty-eight (28) miles wide, and is located on the western edge of a flat plain called Isidis Planitia, which lies just north of the Martian equator. The landing site is about two thousand three hundred (2,300) miles from Curiosity’s landing site in Gale Crater.  Jezero Crater sits within the Isidis Planitia region of Mars, where an ancient meteorite impact left behind a large crater some seven hundred and fifty (750) miles across. This event is known as Isidis impact, and it forever changed the rock at the base of the crater. A later, smaller meteorite impact created the Jezero Crater within the Isidis impact basin. Scientists believe that these events likely created environments friendly to life. There is evidence of ancient river flow into Jezero, forming a delta that has long since been dry.

THE LANDING:

The digital below will show the decent for the landing.  Please note the exact timing given below the digital.

Here’s a step-by-step timeline of the entry, descent, and landing sequence, beginning at the moment Perseverance’s heat shield first encounters the upper traces of the Martian atmosphere:

• Entry+00:00: Atmospheric entry.
• Entry+01:20: Peak entry heating, with temperatures outside the heat shield reaching about 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit (1,300 degrees Celsius).
• Entry+01:30: Peak deceleration.
• Entry+04:00: Perseverance deploys its seventy point five (70.5)-foot-wide supersonic parachute at an altitude of about seven (7) miles and a speed of about nine hundred and forty (940) mph. The craft deploys the chute when it detects that it has reached a predetermined distance from the landing site.
• Entry+04:20: Perseverance jettisons its no-longer-needed heat shield, revealing a landing radar and cameras to help the spacecraft navigate to a safe landing site.
• Entry+04:50: Radar lock on the Martian surface.
• Entry+05:30: Perseverance obtains a terrain relative navigation solution by using images captured by on-board cameras to search for a safe landing site.
• Entry+05:50: The Perseverance rover jettisons its backshell at an altitude of one point three (1.3) miles freeing the craft’s descent stage to fire eight throttleable retrorockets to slow for landing. After reaching an altitude of about sixty-six (66) feet, or 20 meters, the descent stage will lower the rover on Nylon cords to a distance of about twenty-five (25) feet. The rover’s wheels will deploy before setting down in Jezero Crater.
• Entry+6:50: Perseverance lands on Mars. Pyrotechnics will fire blades to sever the Nylon cords connecting the rover to its descent stage, which will propel itself a safe distance away before impacting the Martian surface.

The actual placement of the rover onto the planet is envisioned as follows:

The rover itself looks as follows:

INGENUITY:

One other first represents a huge technology-demonstration component. A tiny helicopter named Ingenuity is flying to the Red Planet on Perseverance’s belly. In the early days of the Mars 2020 mission, Ingenuity will make a few test flights, trying to become the first rotorcraft ever to fly on a world beyond Earth. Success could open Mars to extensive aerial exploration in the future, NASA officials have said.

The Ingenuity copter looks as follows:

“As with everything with the helicopter, this type of deployment has never been done before,” said Farah Alibay, Mars Helicopter integration lead for the Perseverance rover. “Once we start the deployment there is no turning back. All activities are closely coordinated, irreversible, and dependent on each other. If there is even a hint that something isn’t going as expected, we may decide to hold off for a sol or more until we have a better idea what is going on.”

The helicopter deployment process will take about six sols (six days, four hours on Earth). On the first sol, the team on Earth will activate a bolt-breaking device, releasing a locking mechanism that helped hold the helicopter firmly against the rover’s belly during launch and Mars landing. The following sol, they will fire a cable-cutting pyrotechnic device, enabling the mechanized arm that holds Ingenuity to begin rotating the helicopter out of its horizontal position. This is also when the rotorcraft will extend two of its four landing legs.

During the third sol of the deployment sequence, a small electric motor will finish rotating Ingenuity until it latches, bringing the helicopter completely vertical. During the fourth sol, the final two landing legs will snap into position. On each of those four sols, the Wide-Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and engineering (WATSON) imager will take confirmation shots of Ingenuity as it incrementally unfolds into its flight configuration. In its final position, the helicopter will hang suspended at about five (5) inches over the Martian surface. At that point, only a single bolt and a couple dozen tiny electrical contacts will connect the helicopter to Perseverance. On the fifth sol of deployment, the team will use the final opportunity to utilize Perseverance as a power source and charge Ingenuity’s six battery cells.

“Once we cut the cord with Perseverance and drop those final five inches to the surface, we want to have our big friend drive away as quickly as possible so we can get the Sun’s rays on our solar panel and begin recharging our batteries,” said Balaram.

On the sixth and final scheduled sol of this deployment phase, the team will need to confirm three things: that Ingenuity’s four legs are firmly on the surface of Jezero Crater, that the rover did, indeed, drive about sixteen (16) feet away, and that both helicopter and rover are communicating via their onboard radios. This milestone also initiates the thirty (30)-sol clock during which time all preflight checks and flight tests must take place.

“Ingenuity is an experimental engineering flight test – we want to see if we can fly at Mars,” said MiMi Aung, project manager for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL. “There are no science instruments onboard and no goals to obtain scientific information. We are confident that all the engineering data we want to obtain both on the surface of Mars and aloft can be done within this thirty (30)-sol window.

CONCLUSIONS:

One reason I think this is amazing is I worked on the Titan II missile in the mid-60s. The Titan II shot the Gemini astronauts.  All equipment and instruments were analog—not digital.  There were backup systems for safety and it was man-rated so they were absolutely necessary but the Perseverance Program amazes me as to the absolute precision.  This could not have been achieved without the digital age having been accomplished.

YOUR NEXT VEHICLE

Yesterday I was sitting with a group of guys, all trying to solve the most-pressing world problems existing today.  Since we all are basically retired, most solutions involved bringing up the “good old days”.  I heard the following: “back when I was growing up” ***(fill in the blank): “I don’t think Ike would have done It that way”: “reminds me of the time ****” (fill in the blank)., and my favorite, “even Harry Truman looks good compared to these goofballs we have running the country today”.   You can fill in the blanks as you see fit.  Then one gentleman made the comment, ‘if we all live another five (5) years, one of us, if not all of us, will own an all-electric or hybrid vehicle.’  That really got me thinking and after doing some digging, I came up with several interesting facts.  Let’s take a look.

OK, is it time to go electric?  Well, that certainly is a personal decision you have to make but some people think so.

• Global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) increased by forty-three percent (43%) in 2020 to more than three (3) million despite overall vehicle sales dropping by twenty percent (20%) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The global EV market is expected to grow almost forty percent (40%) every year from 2020 to 2027.
• About three hundred and fifty (350) thousand eVs were sold in the United States in 2020. 
• Insights predicts sales of at least five hundred thousand (500,000) units in 2021.
• At the present time, President Joe Biden plans to electrify six hundred and forty-five thousand (645,000) federal vehicles over the next few years.
• Electric vehicles save about seventy-five percent (75%) on fuel for fleet vehicles.
• EVs save approximately sixty-five percent (65%) on maintenance for fleet vehicles.
• EVs reduce greenhouse emissions by approximately eighty percent (80%).
• In most countries, the top two emissions contributors are 1.) buildings and 2.) transportation.  I think this might be made clear when most countries experienced “lock-downs” due to COVID.  With not appreciable transportation, the air became breathable again.

I would like to indicate several companies are not only designing passenger vehicles but trucks and vans.  This is an excellent indication as to where the EV market is going, not only in the United States but on a global basis.

FORD:

Ford officially confirmed plans to build a fully electric F-150 at the 2019 Detroit Auto Show. Information has shown a test version under development in Michigan. It looks very similar to the same version as the existing truck, except for a place to plug in and a slightly higher ride height for fitting the batteries underneath the cab. These vehicles are allegedly very early prototypes, though.

Ford indicated that the truck will be an AWD (all-wheel-drive) vehicle and will be the quickest F-150 to date.  Electric motors can crank out a ton of power at basically zero RPM, so the electric Ford truck should be fast off the line. The power figures have yet to be given but it is assumed the numbers will be similar to the metrics released for the Rivian R1T. The F-150 electric truck will come with dual motors.

The range remains a complete mystery at this point in time, but anything less than three hundred (300) miles would be a disappointment. Expectations are that the electric F-150 to top three hundred (300) miles with ease and believe it will offer more range than the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV.

Now, the price. which is the biggest unknown. Surely a pickup truck is expensive and the electric version of the F-150 will be no exception to this rule. We expect a sub $100,000 starting price, but this is simply just a guess at this point in time.  It is not to be expected that the F-150 EV will come close to matching the $40,000 base price of the Tesla Cybertruck though.  Due to the price, I will NOT be buying an electric F-150 anytime too soon.

The digital picture below shows the electric F-150.

RIVIAN R1T, R1S SUV (AMAZON, FORD)

Digital pictures of the RIVIAN are given as follows:

There is every reason to believe that Rivian will become one of the largest American companies.  This company is working on one hundred thousand (100,000)-plus delivery vans for Amazon at its Plymouth, Michigan facility.  It also has ties, as mentioned above, to Ford. An official launch is planned for June 2021 with deliveries starting in January 2022.  The range for the R1T will be two hundred and ninety-eight (298) miles with a starting price of $67,500.  The R1S has a starting price of $72,500.

LORDSTOWN MOTORS

President Biden recently announced that the six hundred and forty-five thousand (645,000)-vehicle federal fleet will go all electric.  Lordstown Motors is on the U.S. Post Office procurement shortlist for vehicles.  This facility will be introducing in 2021 the Endurance pickup truck with a range of two hundred and fifty (250) miles and a starting price of $52,500.  Its one hundred and nine Kw/Hr. battery and four-hub electric motors should give users six hundred horsepower.  The truck is shown as follows:

GMC HUMMER, CHEVY ELECTRIC PICKUP TRUCK

In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name from AM General and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the new H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms.

Production is expected to start this year for the GMC Hummer EV with a starting price of about $80,000.  The range will be approximately three hundred and fifty (350) miles.  There is not that much information on the Hummer but a projected design is given below.

BOLLINGER PICK UP TRUCK AND SUV

The Bollinger pick up trucks and SUV are called the Champagne of electric vehicles due to the high quality and hand-crafted, boxy-looking design. Bollinger trucks are the only Class 3 electric trucks on the planet. From the ground up, the dream was to build something that didn’t exist. Clean and simple, built to last. Nothing frivolous, nothing unnecessary. All electric. All aluminum. All wheel drive. And they are built in Detroit. I told you they were boxy so take a look below.

These vehicles are designed specifically for heavy work and off-roading, with a sealed assembly allowing them to keep running long after they get wet. They offer a six hundred and fourteen (614) horsepower engine with a two hundred (200) mile range.

TESLA CYBERTRUCK

This vehicle (shown below) will possibly start production late this year from the new Tesla facility in Texas. This truck is expected to have a range of five hundred (500) miles with the ability to tow up to fourteen thousand (14,000) pounds of cargo.  The estimated cost–$40,000.  If they can pull this one off it will be a huge seller.

ATLIS XT

Atlis is planning on one hundred (100) pre-production vehicles some time this year.  The range is very impressive and is hoped to be around five hundred (500) miles.  Starting price, $45,000.

CANOO CARGO VANS

Canoo raised $415 million USD through two rounds of private funding and offers two cargo vans in its lineup.  One van is listed with a starting price of just $33,000. The Los Angeles firm already has three hundred (300) employees, most of whom worked at other companies producing EVs.

CHANJE VANS AND TRUCKS (RYDER, FEDEX)

Chanje (pronounced Change) is a company in partnership with Ryder Trucks. Ryder and Chanje received an order for one thousand (1,000) delivery trucks from FedEx in 2019.  This relationship should become more significant over time.  The V8100 version is an electric medium-duty panel van with six hundred and seventy-five (675) cubic feet of cargo space and a six hundred (600) pound payload capacity. It is a fast-charging version with eighty percent (80%) completion in about an hour’s time.  A digital picture is shown below.

In addition to these offerings, we have the following trucks and vans being developed.

• Ford E-Transit Van
• Lightning eMotors Van Conversions
• Endera Shuttles
• Arrival Vans and Buses (UPS, Hyundai, Kia, and BlackRock)

CONCLUSIONS:

As you can see, things are moving.  The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed many design, development, and manufacturing efforts on a global basis.  Maybe the 2021 year will see these great products commercialized.