I suspect that 300 miles of normal use range would suit any route under any weather conditions.
New USPS van
- Thread starter Finklejag
- Start date
I believe these are a make work project for a defense contractor:
https://oshkoshdefense.com/vehicles/delivery-vehicles/
And they are vastly behind delivery schedule:
https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/18/billions-usps-electric-vehicle/
https://oshkoshdefense.com/vehicles/delivery-vehicles/
And they are vastly behind delivery schedule:
https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/18/billions-usps-electric-vehicle/
AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
Every post office that would get EVs would need chargers installed. How many? 1 charger for each EV? 1 charger for every 2 EVs? $$$$$$$$
Why not hybrids?
Well, EV owners somehow manage to afford the rather minimal costs of a one-time 240VAV outlet install.
Pretty sure USPS could as well for whatever number of trucks each PO actually has. The cost would be in the noise level as compared to the cost of buying and running a fleet of bespoke ICE vehicles.
I'm pretty sure mail delivery is not normal use.
Most postal facilities will typically have about 4kW of mains service installed. This is grossly under powered for charging a large number of EVs. How many thousands of facilities will need major electrical upgrades to support an EV fleet? How many billions of dollars would that cost over and above what has been allocated for the program?
No, mail delivery is low speed stop/start use, so a duty cycle even better suited to an EV.
The cost of the electrical upgrades would be dwarfed by the net present value of the costs associated with a fleet of already obsolete ICE vehicles.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the USPS has already crunched those numbers, hence the reason a majority of those new vehicles will be (non-obsolete) ICE powered.
One thing I'd be really interested to know about is how modular these rigs are in terms of power plant. Can those ICE trucks be converted to EV and back as technology improves or the USPS gradually upgrades their facilities?
One thing to keep in mind is that those trucks are operated in a near constant state of acceleration and use much more fuel (energy) than you would expect. From what I've read, those ULV trucks use 2 to 3x the amount of gas during normal operation than a similarly equipped passenger car with similar technology would. Regenerative braking would help but it's no where near 100% efficient. Closer to 60%.
You have a lot more confidence in the analytical abilities of USPS than I do.
You also may be underestimating the political aspects of their choices.
Possibly. Conversely, I think you might be underestimating the practical and financial costs and difficulties. I'm not intending to be negative towards you in any way, BTW.
I look at the one-time cost of adapting the USPS fleet infrastructure to EVs as resulting in long-term cost savings, both running costs and maintenance and repair.
It also cannot have been cheap to have committed to a fleet of bespoke vehicles that happen to use a power train of questionable longevity.
I may well be wrong, but this doesn't look like a well thought out long term plan if cost efficiency is the goal.
