- The Postal Service announced that it has ordered 9,250 Ford e-Transit vans.
- The order is part of an electrification initiative announced in December.
- The USPS has 14,000 charging stations installed in post offices and related facilities.
The renewal of the Postal Service’s extensive fleet of mail trucks is mired in controversy. Today’s familiar mail trucks, the Grumman LLVs, are old, shabby, (and on occasion flammable), gas-guzzlers. The design and solicitation of bids for the new generation delivery vehicle has been a long and drawn out process, running since 2015. The eventual winner, Oshkosh’s New Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV), has been criticized not for its clunky looks but because the gas-powered NGDV is almost as fuel-thirsty as the old Grumman. The EPA requested that the Postal Service reconsider, but the USPS basically told the EPA to pound the sand.
Perhaps to blunt some of that criticism, the Postal Service also announced in December that it would be adding some 66,000 EVs to its fleet. Now we have the first specifics of that EV effort, with word coming that the Ford e-Transit van will be fit for mail duty. The e-Transit has a 266-hp electric motor, rear-wheel drive, and a 126-mile range. The Postal Service ordered 9250 Fords and reported that they were made in Kansas City, Missouri. They are to be deployed in December.
To recharge those vans, the USPS has ordered 14,000 charging stations to be installed at its various facilities, with equipment coming from three unnamed suppliers.
That doesn’t mean the postal service is turning its back on gas-powered vehicles, though. In fact, the USPS even announced that it is buying the same number (9250) of gas-engined vehicles from Stellantis this time around. Those vehicles weren’t identified, but it’s a fair bet they’re Ram Promaster vans. Or, maybe, they’ll be Hellcat-powered Chargers and Challengers—which might not please the EPA, but it might actually speed up mail delivery.
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Joe Lorio has been obsessed with cars since his Matchbox days, and got his first subscription to Car and Driver at age 11. Amazon Autos, Autoblog, AutoTrader, Hagerty, Hemmings, KBB and TrueCar.