Electric van manufacturer Canoo announced a highly visible deal with the United States Postal Service (USPS), which will see the USPS acquire a handful of right-hand drive versions of the company’s LDV 190 delivery van.
Canoo announced that the USPS will purchase six (6) battery-electric Canoo vehicles. In its official press release, the company said that it was “honored” to participate in the post office’s evaluation of potential suppliers as the USPS moves towards the “groundbreaking electrification and modernization” of its national delivery fleet.
How is this any different than break and gas pedals having different sensitivities from car to car?
Because we’re not talking about car to car, we’re talking about the same control behaving differently on the same vehicle.
If you tap the gas on your Honda civic, you don’t expect it to go flying like a formula 1 car. If you hit the brakes on a Toyota Camry, you know it’ll take a certain distance to stop. If your Honda suddenly flew forward when you tapped the gas, or accelerated like an 18 wheeler when you floored it, that’s something that can cause an accident because the vehicle doesn’t behave predictably.
The steering wheel being able to turn the car 180 degrees with a quarter turn of the wheel one minute, and then take a full rotation to do the same thing the next minute, won’t allow drivers to build good muscle memory for how the car handles. When you have a second or less to react to something like a potential collision, muscle memory matters.
But this would be something that can be seen and corrected immediately, not something you’re going to suddenly notice in the middle of downtown Chicago going 90mph. In fact it would be damn near impossible to not notice before you’re even out of the parking lot.