[Big Dave]

I've been working with a local university on an electric service vehicle.

One would think this is an ideal application for an electric.

Truck is used ten hours per day. Truck never drives over 25 MPH.
Truck never drives more than seven miles a day. Truck spends most of work day parked. Perfect.

We got an old Grumman aluminum van. The electrical engineer speced out the electrical system so don't ask me about it. My only input was to insist on a TEFC propulsion motor.

The lack of heater is a killer. You have to have 120 degree supply air to defrost the windshield or the truck is a no-go. We tried various schemes for an electric heater and all of them killed the main batteries. What did work was a 12v propane heater. Now we arec working to tone down this miniature blast furnace.

Electric cars gotta have heaters or they are doomed to being niche vehicles.