US Postal Service electric trucks are finally here and drivers love them

USPS is finally rolling out its much-anticipated Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDVs), and the first fleet of them to go into service in Atlanta, Georgia is earning rave reviews from delivery drivers according to an AP report.

The process of electrifying Post Office vehicles has been long in the making, with bids and proposals reaching back to the mid-2010s.

After a lot of back and forth, USPS finally settled on a contract with Oshkosh in 2021, but the original plan only included some 10% electric trucks. The vast majority of the purchase would still consist of 8.6mpg gas guzzlers.

So the back-and-forth continued, with Congressional committee hearings, lawsuits, and the Senate (and, of course, we here at Electrek) all pushing corrupt Postmaster DeJoy into making a real commitment to electrify the fleet – as was one of President Biden’s first commitments in office.

All this pressure resulted in the USPS doubling and then doubling again its purchase intent, and finally committing to 100% BEV purchases after 2026, with only a small number of fossil-powered vehicles to come from Oshkosh before then. USPS will also buy some number of off-the-shelf EVs, with a big contract already handed out to Ford for 9,250 E-Transits.

Of course, as we’ve become familiar with in this whole process, the rollout of NGDVs was also delayed, but now AP is reporting on the first fleet of USPS EVs, which has just rolled out in Georgia (where its first EV charging stations were installed in January) to very positive results.

Drivers love new NGDVs – more features, more safety, less stress

The previous mail truck, the Grumman LLV, was built from 1986-1994. So every mail truck on the road today is at least 30 years old.

And those old vehicles suffer from myriad problems. Not only do they only get 9 miles per gallon, they’re also noisy, smelly (I have to close my window every day when the mail truck comes around), have no air conditioning, hard to stand up in, and their only safety feature is mirrors that constantly fall out of alignment. AP also points out that nearly 100 LLVs caught fire last year – a common event when it comes to internal combustion vehicles.

The NGDVs improve on the old LLVs in every one of these aspects. They’re more efficient, not noisy or smelly, have air conditioning, allow drivers to stand up and walk through the vehicle to get packages, and are chock full of safety features both for the driver and to help increase safety of other road users like pedestrians, cyclists, pet dogs, and so on. The NGDVs have around-view cameras, blind spot monitors and collision sensors.

AP quoted drivers in its article, with one stating the air conditioning “felt like heaven blowing in my face,” and another saying the larger and taller package area helps him avoid back pain by not having to crouch. And mail carrier union leader Brian Renfroe said there’s a lot of excitement among postal workers about the new vehicles.

Electrek’s Take

USPS PLEASE REPLACE THE POSTAL VEHICLE FOR THE ROUTE THAT GOES TO MY HOUSE. ITS SO SMELLY. IT FAILS TO START EVERY OTHER DAY. USPS PLEEEAAASSSEEE

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