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Saturday, December 24, 2022
The United States Postal Service (USPS) released plans Tuesday to switch to an all-electric fleet, including a commitment to purchase only electric vehicles starting in 2026.
Under the strategy, USPS is expected to purchase 106,000 vehicles, including 60,000 electric vehicles (EVs), by 2028. By then, the agency anticipates it will be operating 66,000 EVs in total: 45,000 of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) model and 21,000 generic EVs.
USPS expects a cost of 9.6 billion USD; the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will provide 3 billion USD for this purpose.
USPS’ electrification of the fleet is already underway: in July, the agency estimated it would buy 50,000 vehicles by the end of 2022, 50% of which would be EVs, a 3 billion USD expenditure.
The USPS fleet, 220,000 vehicles strong, is the largest of any federal agency-comprising 1/3 of the US government’s fleet (itself the largest governmental fleet in the world)-and it is the oldest.
The Grumman LLV remains USPS’ standard delivery vehicle, despite its manufacturer having ceased production of the LLV in 1994.
The LLV receives 10 miles per gallon (about 16.1 kilometers per gallon), low by today’s standards. It also does not have air conditioning, which Vox reported “is…a serious concern…[s]evere heat is a major problem on mail routes, and postal workers have died delivering mail during heat waves.”
In 2021, USPS estimated that, if given “the right level of Congressional support” it could fully electrify its fleet by 2035 for a cost of 8 billion USD.
United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy declared that year that 90% of vehicles USPS would be purchasing “over the next decade” would be nonrenewable energy vehicles. At the time, the agency, which does not receive tax revenue and sustains itself by imposing fees on its customers, was facing severe financial trouble: a 2006 law forced USPS to “prepay” retired employees’ healthcare compensation before it was repealed in 2022.
DeJoy’s 90% decision put USPS at odds with US President Joe Biden’s administration, which does not directly oversee the operations of USPS. However, in a 2021 executive order, Biden instructed all federal agencies (including USPS) to buy only electric vehicles from 2035.
Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and the Environmental Proection Agency (EPA) urged DeJoy earlier this year to electrify the USPS fleet, citing environmental concerns.
When DeJoy announced the electrification at a press conference outside of USPS headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., he framed it as a cost reduction measure to keep USPS operating effectively.
“We have a statutory requirement to deliver mail and packages to 163 million addresses six days per week and to cover our costs in doing so — that is our mission…if we can achieve those objectives in a more environmentally responsible way, we will do so.”
He declared John Podesta, who coordinates the White House’s green energy policy “collaborative”, adding, “These professionals have demonstrated a real appreciation and understanding for how vehicle electrification can be incorporated into the Postal Service’s mission and transformation, while not distracting from it.”
“Every dollar that I spend, I burn carbon [sic]…So every dollar that I save actually reduces carbon,” he explained.
USPS also unveiled two NGDVs at Tuesday’s press conference.
The White House thanked USPS for pursuing electrification, as did Mallory, the CEQ head, who declared the move “sets the pace for other leading public and private sector fleets. It is clear that the future of transportation is electric — and that future is here.”