The United States Postal Service is doing the damn thing. Against everyone’s better judgment, they are going ahead and authorizing the replacement of its truck fleet with a nearly all-gasoline powered “upgrade.” This comes despite President Biden and the EPA asking the Postal Service very nicely not to do so.
According to Bloomberg, the announcement was made Wednesday and signals their decision to move forward with the absolutely junk trucks. Of the 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only 10 percent will be BEVs.
Postmaster General and USPS Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy said the agency would consider more electric vehicles in the fleet sometime in the future:
“[W]e will continue to pursue the acquisition of additional EV as additional funding – from either internal or congressional sources – becomes available,” DeJoy said. “But the process needs to keep moving forward.
You may think the President would be able to step in and put a stop to this, but it isn’t the case. The USPS operates as a semi-independent agency, so Biden has little power to actually make any changes from within. DeJoy was, of course, appointed by President Trump in May of 2020.
These new trucks have been controversial to say the least.
The USPS’s $6 billion deal with Oshkosh Defense for the NGDV mail truck was first called into question by the EPA earlier this month. The main sticking points are two fold. The first: Only 10 percent of the new trucks will be EVs. The second — and somehow dumber — reason: Their gas mileage barely improves over the outgoing 30-year-old fleet.
As we’ve said before, it’s dogshit.
In fact, the EPA says that with the air conditioner on, it will only return a 0.4-miles-per-gallon improvement over the agency’s current trucks. They reportedly only get 8.6 mpg compared to the old truck’s 8.2. The main difference is the fact the old trucks do not have air conditioning, which postal workers desperately need and deserve. However, you think there would be more of an improvement in 30 years.
The EPA estimates these trucks will end up using 110 million gallons of gasoline every year. The agency also alleges the USPS paid Oshkosh $482 million without doing any research or analysis into the matter.
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