USPS Starts Nationwide Electric Vehicle Fleet (cbsnews.com) 86
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: The U.S. Postal Service's plans for a nationwide fleet of electric vehicles are getting closer to being realized. The service awarded contracts on Tuesday for 9,250 battery electric vehicles and for more than 14,000 charging stations. The vehicles purchased are Ford E-Transit Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), which according to USPS are "100 percent electric." It's part of the agency's plans, announced in December, to make 75% of its newly acquired vehicles, known as Next Generation Delivery Vehicles, over the next five years electric. After 2026, NGDV purchases will be 100% electric, the agency said. The goal is to have a fleet of 66,000 electric vehicles deployed by 2028.
Three suppliers were awarded contracts for more than 14,000 charging stations, as well, USPS said, to kick off its Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) inventory. However, the agency did note that the contracts they just awarded will not provide an immediate supply. The vehicles won't be delivered until December, assuming that the agency successfully finishes its Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and other necessary tasks. It also remains unclear where the vehicles and charging stations will be placed, as those details have yet to be finalized, the agency said.
As such, a contract has also been awarded for the agency to acquire 9,250 commercial-off-the-shelf internal combustion engine vehicles "to fill the urgent need for vehicles." In December, the agency said that 21,000 COTS vehicles will be purchased and are "expected to be battery electric," but said that depends "on market availability and operational feasibility." In this case, the internal combustion engine vehicles will be gas-powered and made by Fiat Chrysler Automobile, a spokesperson for USPS told CBS News. They added that, unlike older USPS vehicles, these will "feature air conditioning and advanced safety technology and are more suited to modern day operational requirements." "We have an urgent need to replace some of our vehicles as soon as possible, and in those instances we will look to obtain vehicles that can be provided to us expeditiously, recognizing that there are a limited amount of BEV options currently available and that the charging infrastructure buildout will also take some time," they said in an email.
"...Today there remain routes and applications which do not support BEVs. As BEV technology matures and capabilities increase, the Postal Service will continue to review its ability to utilize and expand BEV usage."
Three suppliers were awarded contracts for more than 14,000 charging stations, as well, USPS said, to kick off its Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) inventory. However, the agency did note that the contracts they just awarded will not provide an immediate supply. The vehicles won't be delivered until December, assuming that the agency successfully finishes its Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and other necessary tasks. It also remains unclear where the vehicles and charging stations will be placed, as those details have yet to be finalized, the agency said.
As such, a contract has also been awarded for the agency to acquire 9,250 commercial-off-the-shelf internal combustion engine vehicles "to fill the urgent need for vehicles." In December, the agency said that 21,000 COTS vehicles will be purchased and are "expected to be battery electric," but said that depends "on market availability and operational feasibility." In this case, the internal combustion engine vehicles will be gas-powered and made by Fiat Chrysler Automobile, a spokesperson for USPS told CBS News. They added that, unlike older USPS vehicles, these will "feature air conditioning and advanced safety technology and are more suited to modern day operational requirements." "We have an urgent need to replace some of our vehicles as soon as possible, and in those instances we will look to obtain vehicles that can be provided to us expeditiously, recognizing that there are a limited amount of BEV options currently available and that the charging infrastructure buildout will also take some time," they said in an email.
"...Today there remain routes and applications which do not support BEVs. As BEV technology matures and capabilities increase, the Postal Service will continue to review its ability to utilize and expand BEV usage."
Re:Limited range (Score:5, Informative)
here's your sign [google.com]
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none of the first page of links had the actual answer, right?
Perhaps your Google is different from mine, but mine says 25 miles per day right at the top of the page.
250,000+ watts constant pull
A quarter of a MW is nothing. That's like, one industrial motor.
all at the same time of day?
An obvious solution is to stagger the overnight charging schedule. This can be set up in minutes.
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Perhaps your Google is different from mine, but mine says 25 miles per day right at the top of the page.
It absolutely is. A lot of people don't realize that Google searches are personalized, and if they don't log in then they are still personalized, only more poorly. But the flip side of that is that since Google remembers what you searched for, what you clicked on, and what you didn't click on, and presents you with more results accordingly, if you tend to get lower-quality results out of Google than others then it's probably because you failed on your end and clicked on bad results. They claim you can turn
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You do realize that none of the first page of links had the actual answer, right?
The answer was in the excerpt from my top result. Maybe you should stop clicking on total bullshit, so Google will show you useful stuff instead of the crap you've apparently been searching for.
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The range for the cargo van version of the E-transit is only 126 miles. I'm not sure what the average mail carrier vehicle range is per day, but if it's somewhat close to the fresh battery range, that could pose problems a year or two down the line after a number of charge cycles.
Note that, though a postal delivery driver may go hundreds of miles in a day, he doesn't go half that way out and the other half back, but covers an area (possibly large) near the post office. So he doesn't have to do it all on on
Re:Limited range (Score:5, Funny)
What on earth was this team of experts on vehicle procurement & running a national delivery service thinking?! They should've asked me I could've told them [insert fossil fuels sponsored talking point here]!!!
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Change is scary for conservatives and the elderly.
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Change is scary for all of us. The real issue is that we Trust and Distrust different groups of people and sources.
My Grandmother who would be over a hundred if she were still alive. Would trust what ever was in print, which included the national enquirer, or the magazines on the grocery store shelves. My parents in the 1980's were flabbergasted on how she can believe such nonsense, that was obviously fake.... Now had visited my parents they were giving me, an middle age adult, lectures on how dangerous
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Regarding far-left vs. less-far-left (what most people call "right") and science . . . I think that may be a fair statement if you're talking about politicians, but, where I'm sitting, as a socially conservative libertarian with mostly conservative Republican friends, a LOT of us do not trust the "science" around things allegedly being safe, especially when that "science" is clearly being funded and/or publicized by entities with an interest in the outcome.
We see science as a way of learning about the world
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"Change is scary for conservatives and the elderly.". What's scary for this elderly geezer is that change (of the life-affirming and anti-capitalist kind) is happening far too slowly.
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I'm both, sorta (socially conservative libertarian, and late middle age.)
We have enough experience to know that change can be good or bad.
That it can have unintended and/or unadvertised consequences.
That sometimes it can be just stupid.
That sometimes it results from ignorance of the history of similar changes in the past.
That sometimes it is designed to create or worsen divisions.
That sometimes the whole point, though un-advertised, is to further advantage the already well off, while selling it by claiming
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If they are smart they will have a plan to recycle those batteries on day too. A decent supply of standardized batteries is a valuable thing.
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Re: Limited range (Score:3)
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Yeah, I think this is a way of changing that idiotic decision without admitting they made an idiotic decision.
Ford will deliver all these vehicles long before Oshkosh can make a significant number of the "Next Generation Delivery Vehicle" trucks.
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The range for the cargo van version of the E-transit is only 126 miles. I'm not sure what the average mail carrier vehicle range is per day, but if it's somewhat close to the fresh battery range, that could pose problems a year or two down the line after a number of charge cycles.
https://www.ford.com/commercia... [ford.com]
This is an ideal fit for the majority of delivery routes, including the frequent stops. A few rural star routes will require ICE for long range.
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> This is an ideal fit for the majority of delivery routes, including the frequent stops.
In warm climates, yes.
Sleet, or snow, or dark of night - perhaps not.
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Cold weather does limit range but cars have started using heat pumps to keep the battery from freezing. People act like once the first snowflake falls their EV won’t make it around the block. If cold weather really is that much of a problem then you better let all those northern states and nordic countries too for that matter.
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I foresee EVs getting insulated batteries in the future, with more powerful cooling systems to carry away the heat that's currently radiated by the casing. All the good ones have battery cooling systems already. Since batteries produce heat during normal operation anyway, just keeping it from escaping will keep them warm while operating. A heat pump or just a simple resistive heater can be utilized while plugged in, similar to a block heater on a diesel.
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My grandparents once worked STAR routes.
For those not in the know, rural star routes are not typically serviced by postal employees driving postal vehicles. The routes are contracted out. By lowest bid even. My grandparents had their own vehicle for delivering mail.
Some people, for speed or just plain "old" would use two people - one driving, one grabbing the mail. My grandparents often did this when close to retirement age. The distances between houses is typically high, so you'd be getting the mail r
Re: Limited range (Score:2)
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Old timey whining (Score:2)
Old timey whining - the crap that passes for "insightful" on /. these days.... Who mods that up? Oh, wait.
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Next they’re going to lament the good old days of lead plumbing and films made of nitrate stock. Boy those cars without safety glass and breakaway steering columns sure were great to drive!
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I actually asked my mail carrier. The routes out of this rural post office run between 20 and 75 miles. There are other post offices with 150 mile routes, so those will be keeping the gas vehicles for awhile.
The bigger concern is range in the winter through snow with tire chains. That is typically only a couple weeks a year though.
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Most apparently go under 50 miles per day... at very low speeds. Curious about the heat and air conditioning needs though; that could be up to 4 miles of range per hour. Still a huge win over the current vehicles, but over its life cycle it is likely the lower bound of viable range.
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Post offices are on average spread out 10 miles apart from each other, which means they will often cover 314 square miles Across 3 or 4 vehicles per post office.
Plus postal delivery is a lot of slow driving and start and stop which actually is good for range, as these EPA ranges are based on 60mph highway driving.
The Oil and Gas companies, Their political allies, and people who are allied with them. Are looking for reasons why EV are bad, as the Battery Electric Vehicle is a major disrupting technology, whi
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Post offices are on average spread out 10 miles apart from each other, which means they will often cover 314 square miles
Nitpick: If they are 10 miles apart, the radius is 5 miles, and the area is pi*25, not pi *100.
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The longest delivery route in the entire country is.......Longest Rural Delivery Route [usps.com]
Clarinda, IA, 181.4 miles daily.
But that is unusual, this news article reports.......USPS Could Serve Nearly All Its Mail Routes in Electric Vehicles [postaltimes.com]
The average postal route requires 24 miles of driving and nearly all of them are less than 70 miles.
That E-Transit provides 5x the range for the average route, and almost 2x the range of the "nearly all" figure. The article suggests 99% of the routes fit within electric
Re: Limited range (Score:2)
That is more than enough range. Do the math on an 8 hour day. Yields about 16 miles for each hour. Watch a mal truck for a little while and you will see that it is stopped or at idle for far more than 50% of its driving time. They are not flying down the freeway, but instead making their way around town stopping while the carrier delivers the post. Another question is whether the range is based on the EPA test that involves faster driving as opposed to the start stop driving this vehicle will see.
I su
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Look at this page (scroll past the images to the list-base text below):
https://www.greatbusinessschoo... [greatbusinessschools.org]
Most vehicles USPS use travel roughly 18-21 miles per day. So 100+ miles is probably a couple of standard deviations from the norm.
Presumably they're not using these for long-haul, but rather package delivery -- replacing the ancient USPS minivans I see driving around my neighborhood.
This is a cheap solution, as were the minivans they'd replace. I think a better choice would be something custom built for
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Tesla arguably has the best EV charging infrastructure in the US. If it's not good enough for Tesla, you know the USPS is going to have to wait a while before they can ever do an EV fleet.
The range of these vehicles is about five times the length of the average USPS mail route, and if one breaks down they can go and pick it up with a regular old dino juice burning tow truck. Your FUD is sad and tired.
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I think you missed an important part of the rebuttal - Specifically, that these are the final delivery vehicles for mail. They have a home post office that they deliver mail from and to, and they spend every night at that post office. They're only using like 1/4 of their range for the daily route, so there's plenty of time to charge the vehicle back up at night.
Why would they need to use any public charging infrastructure? The clear thing to do for the USPS would be to install chargers in their parking
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You're clearly right, but I suspect the numbers will be more like 2 hybrids, so one can be in the shop, and the rest electric, whatever that number might be -- from 1 (since the hybrid is a backup) to 100.
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Re:Not Even Testa Mobile Service (Score:4, Informative)
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Tesla
Re:Not Even Testa Mobile Service (Score:5, Informative)
There's a rural/urban divide. Remember, most people still live in major metropolitan areas. I'm guessing these vehicles will be used on shorter routes. The 100+ mile rural mail route will likely still be gas. The 30 mile city route is a great candidate for electric - delivery mail each day, charge at night, and save on fuel and maintenance costs.
The majority of routes are only 20 miles [govexec.com]. Even 30 miles is unusual in urban areas. As well, most rural routes are either on flat ground, or go mostly up hill on the way out. What having a vehicle with 120 miles of range means in this context is having enough power to operate in very cold conditions, and/or for multiple days without charging in an outage.
The longest routes and those in the coldest locations will still be on gasoline for the foreseeable future, but even there you can plan to move the vehicles to a gaseous fuel* like LPG or CNG surprisingly cheaply in order to improve emissions.
* Yes, they are stored as liquid, but they are fed into the combustion chamber as a gas... except now they're doing direct liquid injection of these fuels in some engines... whatever
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In fact electric vehicles have been used for this kind of thing in the UK for decades. Milk floats delivery fresh milk to your door every day. They used lead-acid batteries to keep the noise down in the early hours of the morning.
They were limited by the technology of a century ago, but performed a similar function to these postal vans. Relatively short routes with deliveries close together. Often no door or seatbelt. Low speeds.
The main reason they are rare now is that people buy milk at the supermarket in
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Tesla uses Transits not because of range, but because they don't have a viable vehicle of their own to deploy. They also use lease-return Model Xs, and IIRC 3's and a few Y's. Functionally, the Transit is much easier to deal with than a car or light SUV, even after removing unnecessary seats and putting in custom shelving systems.
USPS biofueled fleet (Score:4, Interesting)
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I assumed I'd see an article about a line of mules 9 miles long. I was disappointed to find the route is 9 miles long instead.
Adorable. (Score:2)
Anything is better than these old Grumman vans (Score:3)
The USPS delivery fleet has been long overdue for an upgrade, my local letter carrier is riding around in a vehicle that's over 20 years old and from what I can tell is badly maintained. Still, there are 45 of these in the fleet at the local post office and I'm wondering how they'll get enough Kwh in terms of supply and charging stations to handle that many overnight. Right now the letter carrier just drives to the onsite gas pump and then goes and does the route, so the logistical changes along with workplace scheduling will be something fun to watch. Why? Unions usually have great clauses in their CBAs about changes to workplace practices and the Postal Workers Union will probably want a significant study into how this impacts their members before signing off on anything.
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I love how you manage to bitch about both electric vehicles and unions in the same post. As others have pointed out the average mail vehicle drives 20 miles a day and these new models have a range of 120. Why do all the naysayers think every vehicle will be charged from flat to 100% nightly? Do you burn a full tank of gas every day?
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I live on a rural delivery route. It's over 15 miles to the nearest town with a PO for me. I was not bitching about unions but CBAs usually are very specific about work rules and procedures; if you change what the workers day to day responsibilities and procedures are, they can come back and ask for adjustments. It's standard practice.
If you've ever been involved in trying to get technology into workplaces you'd understand. When PTT networks (NEXTEL) came out there was a big push to get off of Motor
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Using some rough calculations- if the fleet of 45 vehicles was swapped to electric- going by another post that said the average mileage of USPS routes is 24 miles per day. Lots of stop and go, but not a lot of high speed, so make a generous rough estimate of 500Wh/mile. 540KWh per night. Assume 12 hours, and the charging is spread evenly over those 12 hours- 45KW - 187A. Close to the edge for a household circuit, which in the US is most often 200A service. With the assumption that a post office is likely in
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You're an outlier. They can use Stanley Steamers with dual attached always-on flamethrowers to cover your route and the ones like it, and still be much more efficient on the whole by using EVs for the rest.
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how they'll get enough Kwh in terms of supply and charging stations to handle that many overnight.
This is a couple days work for an electrician I imagine. I don't have the stats on thee trucks requirements but let's even say each one needs 20A@208V, so 900A total so they will likely need 2 3-phase 600A installs with sub panels, receptacles, etc. (I am not en electrician so if we have one here who would like to school my napkin math, have at it)
Now this is definitely work but it's not all that uncommon for commerical buildings and it's replacing the gas infrastructure as well which also requires mainte
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Right now the letter carrier just drives to the onsite gas pump and then goes and does the route, so the logistical changes along with workplace scheduling will be something fun to watch.
So you think the unions will insist that their members continue handling toxic, flammable substances?
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probably not but knowing work rules under CBAs, they'll probably want full training, cost, and schedule adjustments if their members are required to charge the vehicles.
Over payed (Score:1)
Wait until next winter (Score:1)
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Yeah everyone driving a Tesla or Bolt goes without heat every winter. Some days there isn’t enough battery power to make it out of the garage!
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Heat pump can also condition the batteries in both winter and summer!
Modern electric auto batteries are hysterically efficient, but horsepower requires a similarly hysterical amount of electricity. (A thousand watts is only 1 1/3 HP.) So once they're up to temperature keeping them warm is not an issue even in the coldest climates, and there are a number of hacks to heat them after an overnight "cold soak", such as using the motor controllers (which also brings the motors to a better operating temperature)
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and batteries dont do so good in cold conditions
I know. I've been trying to tell Tesla drivers in Finland this for years but they just won't listen to me!
None of this will help improve (Score:1)
None of this will improve the usps.
My mail will still go two doors down, and I'll get their mail.
My mail carrier will still insist into ramming an obviously too-large package into a standard mailbox, pulling back and forth with such vigor that she unseated the concrete base. Now I have to re-pour the base. Thanks, lazy fat slob of a mail carrier diversity hire. This is what happens when you go by quota and not merit.
And while this electrification is great for high-density urban and city, let's see how it
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The USPS service is shitty? Well you pay people too little to give a fuck and this is the result. Same deal with fast food service being terrible the past few years. $15 an hour still isn’t enough to deal with Karens and other shitty people day in and day out.
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Re: None of this will help improve (Score:2)
My local post office looks, smells and works like some third world shithole.
Nothing I as a person can do about it other than smash the Frowny button on the "how did we do today" kiosk thingy on the way out.
And the "why" this is so is ENTIRELY political. Hiring practices. Training practices. All political and hugely so.
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I have to say, "lazy slob" and "with such vigor" that she managed to break your box doesn't really go together.
And while this electrification is great for high-density urban and city, let's see how it plays out in bumfuck North Dakota or Wyoming Rural Routes. In March.
The article says 75% of the fleet. How much do you want to bet that they've already decided to hold off there?
The virtue-signaling in this endeavor saddens me deeply.
It isn't virtue signaling, it's cost saving. They can get and operate custom electric vehicle for less overall money than they can gasoline ones. The electrics promise lower fuel costs, lower maintenance costs*, etc...
*Keep in mind that stop and go driving is perfectly fine for EVs, but
Excellent Case Study (Score:1)
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Very good point. The USPS is in the top 6 employers in the US -- 600k employees. They have offices everywhere, so you can work the data everywhere and not have missing data based on location. Yes -- this will be a really good data source.
Power ? (Score:1)
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OK, here goes: the US consumed 8.7e6 barrels/day in Oct 2022. Each barrel is 42 gallons, and a gallon of gas has the heat equivalent of 33.7kWh. 12e9 kWh usage per day. In the US, found an estimate that the annual total miles driven is 3.2e12, so the daily is about 8.8e9 miles. So, from that- the average energy usage (assuming all the miles were gasoline driven) - 1.4kWh per mile.
The main reason we have EVs today is that they are massively more efficient typically in the range of 0.25kWh/mile - so the same
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Actually depends how far they have to go.
If each vehicles does 50 miles, at 2 miles per KwH (likely they will do a LOT better than this) - each vehicle requires recharge of 25 kWh over 12 hours. A standard outlet would cover most of that (even a US one at 120V),
Many industrial/commercial properties (in the UK at least) have 3-phase electricity ... so we are talking many vehicles drawing 3kW over the night ... and if you have to use local renewables (sun doesn't shine at night) then ... there's batteries ...
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Does anyone know whether these can help stabilize the local grid when they're not in use?
I hope USPS will add Ranlytics' cellular coverage! (Score:2)
https://www.ranlytics.com/comp... [ranlytics.com] -- "Ranlytics accurately maps cellular coverage on every street and road near Seattle".