Senate calls USPS bluff with $3 billion for electric trucks - will it go 100% BEV?
A great turn of events to get the USPS out of gas vehicles, with a side benefit of probably pissing off Louis DeJoy.
The US Senate has allocated $3 billion in additional funding to the US Postal Service for electrification of the nation’s delivery fleet, as part of yesterday’s massive climate bill. It’s the latest move in the long saga for postal service electrification and effectively “calls USPS’s bluff” by supplying as much funding as the USPS claimed a 100% BEV fleet would cost.
For years now, people have been calling for the USPS to electrify the delivery fleet. The nation’s gas-powered Grumman LLVs have been in service for more than 30 years now and desperately need an update.
Electric vehicles are perfect for mail delivery in many ways, providing quiet and clean operation to reduce disruption to neighborhoods, regenerative braking for constant stop-and-go driving, high low-end torque for heavy loads, and no need to idle while stationary. Electric vehicles are also cheaper to run and maintain, which is important for a massive fleet of hundreds of thousands of vehicles.
Finally, and most importantly, electric trucks produce fewer global warming emissions, which is necessary to combat the climate crisis we are currently facing.
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Senate calls USPS’s bluff
In its decision, the USPS (though with a few uncharitable assumptions) claimed it would cost $3.3 billion more in upfront costs to convert the fleet to 100% BEV instead of 90% ICE – which almost perfectly matches the $3 billion allocated by the new Senate bill. And given that the USPS has already committed to 40% BEV, the cost differential (per USPS analysis) is likely even smaller.
More:
https://electrek.co/2022/08/08/senate-calls-usps-bluff-3-billion-for-electric-trucks/
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