The US Postal Service isn’t resting all of its hopes for electrification on next-generation postal delivery trucks. The agency has agreed to purchase 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles, with the first arriving in December. Ford says that the transition should be completed by the end of 2024. The United States Postal Service is also putting early orders for approximately 14,000 charging stations for its sites around the country.
The USPS has already committed to purchasing at least 60,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) by 2028, with 75% of them being electric. The Ford vans are part of a larger plan to purchase 21,000 “off-the-shelf” EVs. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy believes this allows the USPS to swiftly implement a plan that enhances postal delivery and working conditions while keeping the self-sufficient agency’s costs low. The overall vehicle investment is estimated to be $9.6 billion, with $3 billion coming from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The charging network might not expand as rapidly. The USPS anticipates providing chargers to at least 75 places over the next year, but does not specify how it would grow in subsequent years.
The whole EV push is a significant departure from the original goals. The USPS had anticipated that the majority of its NGDV purchases would be for gas-powered vehicles. The Biden administration resisted that strategy, stating that DeJoy’s USPS ignored EPA advice, rejected public hearings, and relied on “biassed” projections. The service fought the government before yielding and moving the majority of its purchases to electric vehicles.
The changeover will be critical to the government’s ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for itself and the country as a whole. The United States Postal Service has the largest government vehicle fleet, thus its EV acquisitions will have a substantial impact in comparison to other agencies.
