So, why aren't "we" buying more electric cars?

[FarCenter]

58. The Post Office has tried electric vehicles

Ford Electric Trucks, 2000-2003

In December 1999, the Postal Service ordered 500 electric right-hand drive mail delivery vehicles based on the
Ford Ranger from the Ford Motor Company in partnership with Baker Electromotive of Rome, New York – the
largest single order of electric vehicles in U.S. history. Most of the vehicles – about 480 – were used in California,
with the remainder used in Washington, D.C., and White Plains, New York. Fifteen groups, including the
California Energy Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, local air quality management districts, utilities,
and state agencies, partnered together to pay for the extra cost of the vehicles, which cost about twice as much
as gasoline-powered models ($42,000 vs. about $22,000). The first two vehicles were field-tested at the Fountain
Valley, California, Post Office beginning in July 2000; most of the vehicles were deployed from March 2001 to
March 2002.12

In October 2002, Ford advised the Postal Service that it was cancelling its electric vehicle program and that the
producer of the vehicles’ battery pack, East Penn Manufacturing Company, Inc., was planning to end production.
Ford suggested that the Postal Service could purchase replacement batteries for its vehicles in advance and hold
them in cold storage for the future. Rather than face the prospect of unknown numbers of battery replacements
over the life of the vehicles – the original estimate of a three- to five-year battery life had been revised downward
to about two – the Postal Service returned the vehicles in August 2003 to the Ford Motor Company in exchange
for gas-powered Windstars.

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/electric-vehicles.pdf

See also http://about.van.fedex.com/article/cleaner-vehicles
FedEx is trialing 43 all electric and 330 hybrid electric vehicles.

http://pressroom.ups.com/Fact+Sheets/Saving+Fuel%3A+Alternative+Fuels+Drive+UPS+to+Innovative+Solutions
UPS has around 30 all electric and about 400 hybrid electric vehicles.

For a commercial application, the technology has to be less expensive than the alternative to satisfy the cost accountants, it has to be reliable and long-lived with a secure source of spares and maintenance for about 20 years, and it has to satisfy the functional and operational demands of the business.