USPS Finalizes Plans To Buy Gas-Powered Delivery Fleet, Defying the EPA and Whit...

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• Re:

  Yes, electric motors have been very good for many years. It's just that one small pesky problem of battery designs only just starting to reach capacity and longevity of gasoline engines.
  
  The other problem is that the current USPS delivery fleet is well past it's designed lifetime. They need new vehicles NOW.

  • Re:

    Having trouble finding an average miles driven per day, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't well within the range of current EVs.

    Taxi companies love EVs. The cars need very little maintenance and the batteries last longer than fossil fuel engines. Plus a battery replacement is relatively easy compared to an engine replacement.

    Are their preferred suppliers just way behind on the technology? There are electric busses that have been in production for years now, and in China they became the bulk of sales abo

    • Re:

      Vehicle MPG ratings (and ranges) are determined by the EPA. I would guess their "real world" tests do not accurately represent how a USPS vehicle would be used and therefore their MPG estimates would not be accurate. USPS vehicles have a lot of stop and go behavior as well as idle time. I honestly have no idea if gasoline or electric would be best in the USPS fleet.

      https://www.epa.gov/compliance... [epa.gov]

      https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPD... [epa.gov]

      • USPS vehicles have a lot of stop and go behavior as well as idle time. I honestly have no idea if gasoline or electric would be best in the USPS fleet.

        I also don't have all the data needed, but *stop and go" is pretty much the ideal case for electric and the worst case for gas. Aside from a few rural routes, USPS trucks are in the sweet spot for current EV tech.

        • Re:

          This is the part I'm not sure about. It's not "a few rural routes", but I don't know what percentage of the routes and vehicles on those routes are rural. The only documentation I've found has said there are 80,000 rural routes and 133,000 rural carriers. What percentage of the vehicles will be used on rural routes where an electric vehicle probably doesn't make sense?

          https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/d... [uspsoig.gov].

          I found this which says the USPS has "over 200,000" vehicles.

          https://about.usps.com/news/st... [usps.com]

          I agree th

          • A lot of rural mail carriers have to supply their own vehicle. The carriers where I used to live used 4wd SUVs because they held up better on the unpaved roads.

            • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower c

              I used to live in the country side of Ohio for decades. The mail carriers use their own vehicle.

        • • Re:

            Umm... Most of the current usps trucks do not have AC. This new generation will. There is no requirement to keep packages between 50-80F unless they are special delivery and paid extra, in insulated boxes. Additionally, the electrical cost to keep a heater going is minuscule compared to the electric cost of the motor - see Teslas in cold environments.

            • • • Re:

                  Tesla cars are really really fucking expensive. Maybe you don't think so, but that would mean your are definitely a privileged 1 or 2 percenter.

          • Re:

            You also have to consider the added strain on the electrical grid (and by extension the fossil fuel plants that largely power it). Probably would need some study to see how much extra capacity and distribution grid overhaul might be required to account for 150,000 new EV trucks.

            • • Re:

                I appreciate the contribution, but unsourced anonymous internet posts are not very persuasive to me. I'd prefer something more formal+nuanced.

      • Well idle time in an EV used zero power. Stop start really depends on how hard they accelerate and how good the regen is. For a vehicle like that having regen right down to nearly stopped will be important.

        How many miles a day do you think they need? 200 miles? That's easily within the range of consumer EVs from a few years ago. In Europe there are commercial vans that can do that on the market already.

    • The routes are like 25 miles on average lol.

      There are some longer rural ones but even the longest one is 185 miles but IIRC the rural routes are deliverted in the driver's vehicle.

      This is an absolute no brainer. Known short routes, lots of idling, stop and go driving. Overnight charging in the depot. You couldn't possibly have a better use case for EVs. Just by E-Transists from Ford or something goddam it.

      • Re:

        How much infrastructure changes are required at the depot to charge that many vehicles overnight? I'm all in for switching to electric, but it seems that the cost of the vehicles isn't the only cost associated with electric fleets. There's at least 100 delivery trucks i can see at my local mail depot. I wonder how much cost and time it would take to have infrastructure to charge all those vehicles. Not saying it's impossible, just something to consider.

        • Overnight charging for postal trucks will use simple 120 V 20 amp. Each draws as much as a toaster. Upgrade is cheap, grid capacity at night is cheap.

          It is just the last money grab by gas car makers, When all the private parcel deliver companies switch to EVs to save cost, USPS will be wasting money in gas, and the same politicians who shoved this gas van monstrocity down the throat of USPS will be saying, USPS is inefficient, wastes money...

          • • True, but electric vans don't need oil change....

              All the parking lots have lamp posts wired for 240 v 20 amp circuits to support halogen, sodium vapor lamps. They are switching to LED. There is spare capacity in every damned lamp post in USA. Adding a simple 10 amp plug for EV is not much

              Your ordinary 120 v outlet in the wall can dispense 25000 miles a year plugged 24/7. So many Tesla owners are making do with a 120 V charger in their garage. EV overnight charging is a lot simpler than it appears

              As for the load on the grid, EV charging load on the grid is no different from Aircon load on summer evenings. But charging happens at night, when the base load plants are operating way below their rated capacity.

              Anyway, you don't have to believe me, I don't have to convince you. We do not matter in the larger scheme of things. The bean counters and fleet operators count. Watch what they are doing. When UPS and Fedex and Amazon are all using electric vans, the chugging smelly noisy postal vans will be a good reminder to people, "elections have consequences, elect morons based on culture wars, and you end up with dumb solutions"/

        • Heck with the overnight charging, go with the rapid stuff.

          Fed Ex is going electric in a big way.
          https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/1... [cnbc.com]
          If a private company believes it is better financially to go this route, then there is no effin' way a government entity shouldn't do the same.

          Heck, while the Fed Ex trucks are big babies, they are reasonably priced, and made by GM.
          Oh, wait... the contract for the USPS was made by a Trump appointee, to Oshkosh Defense Corp... let me check... yep, PAC donations go 2:1 to GOP candidates, and they explicitly donated to Trump..

    • • Re:

        They must have depots where the vehicles are stored when not in use. They probably have fuel there already, and certainly electricity. So overnight charging is no big deal.

  • Re:

    It's difficult to believe the answer is as simple as you say for such a long-term decision and major public investment.
    
    As long as I have been alive, I have known batteries to be replaceable, (and to even become rechargeable), given the end of their usefulness.

    • Re:

      Also these trucks will have to last decades, and battery tech is rapidly improving and becoming cheaper. When the first batteries start wearing out, the replacements will be cheaper and better than the originals. New gas engines and fuel injectors will cost the same or more.

      • • Gas engines last 30+ years.

          Most in fact do not last that long without expensive major maintenance. The average age of vehicles in the US "fleet" is 11 years and it is very common for the end of a vehicle's lifespan to be marked by expensive engine failure.

          Thats somewhere between 3x and 6x as long as the best data for how long EV batteries will last.

          No, it is not. Even if it were true (which it isn't) it would be between 3x and 6x as long as the best data for how long before EV batteries are at 80% charge capacity. For a postal route that's less than 100 miles, and all stop and go traffic which by the way reduces ICEV lifespan but does literally nothing bad to EV lifespan, an originally 200 mile range vehicle can continue to do this job until its battery capacity is reduced to 50%.

          Now, stop being a half-assed rationalizer and try again.

          Pot. Kettle. Black. Stop being a half-assed hypocrite rationalizer. Don't bother trying again, though.

        • Re:

          What are you talking about?

          Yearly maintenance of EVS is way, way less than the equivalent of gas vehicles, even ignoring fuel costs. ICEs have tons of parts (many of them moving) which run hot and fail; EVs have a lot fewer parts, few of which move and require far less maintenance. Even some parts common to all vehicles (brake pads, for example) are cheaper in EVs since regenerative braking reduces the wear rate and thus replacement rate. And you know all this, so please let me know if your rationalizati

    • • Re:

        We are talking about the USPS not UPS, postal carriers are very rarely driving for 12+ hrs a day and EV battery life is not based on hrs its based on miles. No route is going to be 300 miles long.

        • • Your packages need to be kept at 50F - 80F.

            Uh, if that were true, then for a large part of the country for a large part of the year, the carriers wouldn't be able to leave your mail in your mailbox.

      • Re:

        They're not readily swappable in the typical consumer vehicle but, there have been designs where it can happen. Anyway, this is completely irrelevant to USPS delivery vehicles. They're not working for any 12-hours straight.

  • Here in Austria, the Austrian Post uses electric delivery vans (Nissan eNV200) since 2015. German Bundespost even has its own manufacturer for electric delivery vans (Streetscooter) since 2014. There is no reason why USPS should not be able to get hold of proven electric delivery vans right now.

    • • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower co

        Charge stations are irrelevant. Charge TIMES are not. The duty cycle of a postal truck exceeds 12hr days. Do you want to be getting mail at 3AM? Can USPS really afford to double the number of drivers because they had to work them 24 x 7?

        • Re:

          You keep saying they deliver more than 12 hrs a day and they don't. Even though it doesn't matter why would I care if my mail is delivered at 3 AM?

          • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower c

            They start their shift at 6am and they are delivering past 6:30pm. I know because my mailman changes up his route and works it backwards a few days a week. Sometimes I get mail at 10am. Sometimes I get it at 3pm. Sometimes its 6:30pm. The trucks are on the road for 12 straight hours. They deliver a large chunk of amazon and ebay packages. Nobody wants their package to arrive at 2am just in time for the fuckwads that go around at 4:30 pulling on car door handles trying to steal shit. Not to mention doubling

        • Re:

          > The duty cycle of a postal truck exceeds 12hr days

          Got a citation for that? All the sources I've stumbled upon say the average shift for a local delivery route is 6 hours, for a total post worker's shift of 8 hours when you include sorting and loading. Apparently they go to some effort to keep each worker's shift close to 8 hours.

          Okay, maybe each vehicle runs two shifts with different drivers? Even if that happens there would definitely be a break in between, and that still leaves you with 12 hours per

          • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower c

            I challenge you to sit in your vehicle for 12 hours a day running the heater to keep it at 70F while youre in it, when its 12F outside. Running heat, running AC, running the data tablets that scan the packages. They all consume power. HEAT being the least efficient. And yes the delivery times on my mailmans route, depending on the delivery order, range from 9am to 6:30pm. The truck gets loaded at 6:30am as per my out-for-delivery SMS messages. So environmental controls are already at work.

        • Re:

          Not only is this not true (postal routes are normally completed in 8 hours or less, but may take up to 9 hours) but it's also a stupid objection. 12 hours of use leaves 12 hours for charging, they can slow charge in that time so they don't even need fast chargers, just 220V outlets like you would plug a dryer into.

          • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower c

            But can they last 12hrs running environmental? I am not concerned about off-duty charge times. I am concerned if a single charge can keep it on the road for the entire delivery. There are several times during the week when I get an SMS notification about a package being out for delivery, that message comes in at 6:30 in the morning when its placed on the truck. Depending on the route my delivery guy takes my package can arrive as late as 6:30 in the evening. I know for a fact you live in the bay area, so y

      • Re:

        Each post office of exchange has their charging stations, and a delivery driver will get back to the office as soon as all mail is delivered. And then the delivery van is charged, while it is loaded with the next mail to deliver. As long as your round trip does not exceed 150 miles, it's possible on a single charge of a 40 kWh battery pack.

      • Re:

        How is that at all relevant? Do you think postal carriers are delivering to multiple states in one day?

• Pretty much a modern milk float

  There used to be a type of vehicle in the UK called a milk float [wikipedia.org], which was a battery operated vehicle for delivering milk in sub-urban neighbourhoods. They were slow, but for the purpose they were used for they were pretty good. The reason they went out of fashion is most people stopped having their milk delivered and there was no longer a market for that kind of vehicle.

  This was what they achieved with tech designed mostly in the 1950s, inefficient motors, old battery designs and heavy iron frames. The ma

• • Re:

    Energy recovery is on most EV's standard.
    I don't know how many hours per day these trucks are not being used, if it's say 8hrs that would be sufficient for a good charging for the upcoming shift.
    Also, ordering this many vehicles gives a lot of cloud demanding things like easy replacement for when better batteries become available.

  • Re:

    Electricity can be generated cleanly, where was gasoline can't. There are also no emissions from the vehicle itself, i.e. where people live and breath the air.

    As for efficiency, just the fact that it uses no energy when the vehicle is stationary is huge for a mail delivery vehicle that has to stop and start constantly.

    • Re:

      As for efficiency, just the fact that it uses no energy when the vehicle is stationary is huge for a mail delivery vehicle that has to stop and start constantly.

      Also regenerative breaking. Huge efficiency boost for frequent stops and reduces the amount of nasty brake pad dust. Not to mention another source of reduced maintenance.

    • • Re:

        Okay, let's say you want 2kW of heating or cooling continually. With a heat pump you are looking at say 750-1000W max. So 12 hours would be worst case 12kWh.

        Adding an additional 12kWh of battery is no big deal. For reference the original Leaf from over a decade ago had 24kWh, and the average for modern EVs is around 50kWh.

        • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower c

          The heat pump? I got news for you they dont put heat pumps in cars. I got more news for you the month of January my heat pumps didnt run at all. I was stuck using the electric heat strips because it was too cold outside. My electric bill was 2x what it was in december or november. Youre better off using the math with two 1400W space heaters. My heat strips ran a lot despite keeping the thermostat at 62F(16.6C) . Given the constant open/close of the mail truck doors, also assume very little idle time. So 2.8

      • Re:

        Electric heaters are far more efficient then running your engine for heat.

• • Re:

    So, reading a bunch of comments here, and this stuff about environmental controls (A/C and heating) keeps popping up. Let's look at the math;

    EV battery: Readily available at 100kWH, 200-400mi range.
    A/C: My home AC (~2000sqft) is 3kW. That battery will run it for 15 hours (straight!), using 45% of charge -- and is massively overpowered for a delivery van.
    Heating: a 3kW heater is a stove element on 'high'. 1kW as a small space heater; 50 hours, using 50% of the battery charge.

    So, on a hot or cold day -- a

    • Re: Electric engines offer better torque, lower c

      I appreciate the math but I wanna see your real world experiment on the heat part because heat, electric heat is extremely inefficient. It needs to be done below freezing temperatures outside and it needs to heat the entire cabin. I donâ(TM)t know how to adjust for the much larger cabin of a delivery vehicle compared to a sedan but lets start with those numbers. Electric heat is by far the worst. I just had a $530 electric bill for the month of january. Crazy energy inflation aside, I am still in one o

  • Re:

    An EV with a 90kWh battery will do some +300mi.
    Recharging to 80% takes around 35 mins, time well spend on a coffee and a snack and thus similar to a regular refuel.
    At least that's how it works for me.
    
    So I don't see where you are getting the added DAYS from.

• Re:

  Sure the upfront cost might be more than an EV but the cost to the environment should also be considered.
  Yes I know that's un-American.

  • Re:

    Not on the internet, where if it even saves one butterfly the cost to tax payers does not matter. Practicality also doesn't matter.

• Re:

  The main problem for me is that an electric car costs a fortune compared to even a new petrol one, and still moreso compared to a second-hand one. I don't imagine that the USPO is buying second-hand, but what is the price difference for electric cargo vehicles?

  If you're shopping in a budget the ecological issues don't make new money magically appear.

  Well, electric cars do cost more upfront, especially if you're trying to compare a midrange electric to a bargain basement econobox. But for postal vehicles, th

• Re:

  Over the vehicle's lifetime an EV will be much, much cheaper. Cheaper "fuel", less maintenance. Even less wear on the brakes due to regen.

  Any organization that can budget for any reasonable length of time will see that EVs are cheaper overall. This decision makes little sense, it's going to cost USPS a fortune to keep those vehicles running.

  • Re:

    I don't know exactly how the USPO is funded but I'd bet they don't have surity of budget that goes even 5 years ahead and that's probably not "any reasonable length of time".

    If they vans they have are falling apart they need replaced now with the money they have now.

    It will cost them more in the long run, but the long run isn't here yet. Such is the world.

    • Re:

      The USPS is funded by people paying them to deliver stuff. Their budget is not at the whim of Congress.

• • Re:

    Hey dim-wit, in this equation the cost of IC to the environment should not be forgotten.
    And Lithium being toxic is not an issue because outside your right-wing bubble those batteries are recycled.

    • Re:

      Are they? Citation required.

    • • Re:

        You're making too much practical common sense on the internet. Please refrain from unnecessarily exciting these netizens.

      • Re:

        You are wrong, unfortunately, in that one side (so-called conservatives) only care about STIGGINIT and winning. All you have to do is look at Fox News sounding like RT (especially tovarich Tucker), them wearing shirts that say they'd rather be Russian than a Democrat, openly talk about overthrowing duly elected governments, and Republican elected officials would rather coddle terrorists and traitors than risk pissing off the nutters for the elections. At this point conservatives have become an existential t

      • Re:

        Wrong, and also wrong.

        Lots of people just want to watch the world burn. Don't pretend it isn't true.

        What I want is not specifically an efficient use of money, it's an intelligent and most importantly sustainable use of money. Nothing is more important than sustainability, period. If you don't have a future, it doesn't matter what it would have looked like.

        • Re:

          Not exactly true. They just want to get theirs, they don't care about if there is anybody left for anyone else.

        • Re:

          Nothing is more important than sustainability, period. If you don't have a future, it doesn't matter what it would have looked like.
          Wrong and also wrong. Sustainability is a noble goal, they need those trucks now, If you die in a month b/c your insulin didn't arrive, you really don't give a shit how high the oceans are in 5 decades. If you die in the present, then the future is irrelevant.

      • Re:

        I understand your response. Unfortunately, propaganda has managed to get the best of us. Both groups tend to find extremist elements of the opposition and apply that as a definition for the entire group. The reason why lean one particular way when I used to lean another was based on anti-science positions held by the conservative party, specifically wanting to teach Creationism as a scientific theory in science class, though this itself was an extremist position. As I continued to see more shift politic

        • Re:

          Both siderism is what brought us to this place.

          When playing chicken, being rational is the way to lose.

          Republicans are playing chicken, and Democrats will always compromise, to save the country and lose support from Democrats and will not win over any Republican. Cycle repeats.

      • Re:

        You might not be familiar with the concept in your country, but in the United States, there are a lot of people who only want money to be used in whatever way gives them the most in kickbacks.

  • Re:

    Why would a "Leftist Biden Voter" vote for Trump?

  • keep voting for corrupt, incompetent, senile old men

    I don't think it necessary to tell left-wingers to not vote for Trump, who actually IS corrupt, incompetent and senile.

    Whilst petrol engines may be more efficient than electric, you did not perform much of a cost analysis there, just threw in some unsubstantiated claims, extrapolating from a single data point. If you have a point, you should actually make that point.

    Now, let's get on to petrol engines being efficient.

    Yes, there was a challenge, the X-Prize, to build a petrol car that could do 100 mpg at 100 mph on a complex path (so not just in a straight line) whilst carrying two adults and two children. There were two cars that succeeded in this, showing clearly that you can build highly efficent cars. There are no road cars in America that are remotely close to this level of efficiency. Some of that is down to the weight necessary to reach the safety levels needed, but even if we factor that in, we should be seeing cars do a whole lot better than they are. At least 20-30 mpg better than they're currently rated, in many cases.

    So we know we can build amazingly efficient internal combustion engine vehicles, if you build it correctly.

    I'd start by asking why car manufacturers obsess more about tradition than engineering. It's why American car manufacturers were crushed by Japan, after all. Had nothing to do with unions and everything to do with very poor traditional vehicles as opposed to building things right.

    The next thing I'd look at is the choice of vehicles. According to TFA: "However, the Postal Service announced its agreement to purchase the trucks in February 2021 before it started an environmental analysis", "`When it came out,` said Adrian Martinez, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, `we realized they were either looking at the wrong things or they were totally misinformed. And whether that was intentional or not, it’s hugely problematic.`"

    In short, they chose the vehicles first before looking at any numbers, any TCO, or any other aspect. That's not how you shop for a vehicle, especially if you want one with a low impact.

    Right there, we see that your argument has no bearing on the matter because they never considered whether any type of engine was better, or even which vehicles were efficient.

    They may well have chosen the best vehicles, but if so it was by luck and not design. And if those were the best vehicles available, I'd ask why manufacturing is still churning out substandard vehicles. You're not going to get 100mpg in a truck, but if you can't do better than a 0.4mpg improvement over many decades of engine technology advancements, then the vehicles being produced really are pathetic compared to where the technology is.

    So, sure, I've no problems with ICEs, but make them the best ICEs for the job and not just something they were recommended when they played golf with a manufacturer's salesman.

    • Re:

      That's not how you shop for a vehicle, that's how you direct funds to specific people's pockets. I will bet actual money that this will turn out to have been a conspiracy to further enrich someone who's already rich.

  • Re:

    Actually, no. ICE is far more mechanically complex which results in requiring many repairs over it's lifetime. Repairs cost money.

    The investment price is indeed much higher. However, the cost of repairs as well as the cost of fuel and up making ICE vehicles more expensive. The environmental cost (which will need to be paid in time) should also be taken into account. An ounce of prevention and all.

    Toxic chemicals are used in all refinement processes which is why we take care when using them. You should

• Re:

  This is the text that immediately preceded the text you chose to comment on,

  "Federal climate science officials said the Postal Service vastly underestimated the emissions of its proposed fleet of "Next Generation Delivery Vehicles," or NGDVs, and accused the mail agency of fudging the math of its environmental studies to justify such a large purchase of internal combustion engine trucks.".

  • Re:

    Wrong. The text immediately preceding the text that I quoted was "DeJoy, "

• That's funny, because DeJoy has completely trashed service quality, deliberately increasing planned delivery times and on top of that on time delivery rates plummeted (though rebounded as 'on time' was redefined.
  
  This is a guy who thinks the PO's mission is decline in service and increase in price until he's successfully starved the beast and Congress moves to privatize all mail delivery. So what makes sense? This fucking disgrace of a Post Master General making yet another shitty decision, then complaining he wasted so much time making said shitty decision it's now too late to make a far better one?
  
  He's a classic Republican, the government can't do anything right, and by god he'll sabotage it as much as it takes to prove that, while he's well positioned to profit immensely off of competing private services (no, he hasn't even remotely divested from all conflicts).

  • Re:

    Just out of curiosity, do you understand the history leading up to this? The shitty decisions that Congress made regarding the postal service predate Trump by at least a decade. Logic suggests that these decisions must also predate the tenure of a Trump appointee. Or did I miss some big news about time travel technology?

    • Dejoy is just the freshest turd on the pile of shit that congress, especially Republicans, have been piling up outside USPS' doors.

      A big part of it seems to be because there is a lot of money to be made in privatizing the postal service. Part of it is likely because the USPS is a great example of how a government run operation can be efficient, cost-effective, and popular... which runs counter to conservative's talking points that the government can do no right.

      Dejoy specifically was installed to help cripple the USPS just in time to stymie mail-in voting, because Republicans have an even longer tradition of hindering certain demographics the ability to vote. One of the first things Dejoy did was dismantle a whole bunch of brand new sorting equipment which caused massive backlogs and delays just as mail-in ballots were being sent to voters...

      The correct solution is to get Congress out of the picture and let the USPS operate as the constitutionally mandated service it's supposed to be.
      =Smidge=

  • Re:

    One thing to remember, Louis had a fair chunk of change, and friends, in USPS competitors. That's on top of other revenue streams from competitors that his family receives. Oh and even though he "divested" from the competitors personally, make no mistake about him getting paid off in the end to f**k up USPS.
    
    The truck thing is money. Right now the custom Ford Transit van works out to about US$35k per vehicle. That's actually not bad at all, a pretty sensible deal, but American stop/start systems are farki

  • • It's complicated, and yes it is Trump's doing that DeJoy can't be directly replaced. https://slate.com/news-and-pol... [slate.com]

    • Re:

      Maybe if you took the trouble to understand how anything works you would realize Biden does not have that power and he's only been in office for just over 1 year.

    • Re:

      Well, most obviously, because it’s outside his authority as the President. The position is appointed by a Board of Governors and can only be vacated by an act of the same Board. The President can (depending on the circumstances, sometimes, maybe) put members on the Board as they roll off, but they serve seven-year terms and things ended up being timed so that Trump was able to fill five of the nine seats, so Biden wouldn’t even be capable of filling the Board with enough people to oust DeJoy unt

• Re:

  The one thing that matters is the biosphere we all depend upon for life support, and that fossil fuels are hastening its demise and thus ours. Mail delivery is stop and go, so by definition it is literally the worst case for an ICEV.

  He knows his mission is to destroy the USPS.

• Re:

  A swampy motherf*@ker gotta swamp.

• Re:

  USPS will still be struggling because they will still be required to pre-fund pensions. This decision will likely exacerbate the problem. But it wont' be their biggest challenge. Part of the reason behind this decision is likely lower acquisition costs which are needed in order to free up cash to pre-fund the pensions.

• Re:

  You mean Trump. Your talking points are identical to beachmike, so you're either a sock puppet or you're both getting your talking points handed to you on a plate.

  You HAVE good arguments there, somewhere, but you SHOULD be thinking of them yourselves. Be competent. You're capable of it. Well, assuming you aren't a sock puppet.

• Re:

  So they get loans for that. Since the TCO of EVs is lower than ICEVs, that should be easy. The only needed infrastructure is wiring and sockets. Since they can charge overnight when no mail is being delivered, they don't need fast charging.

  No, they won't. Rural routes are still not very long. They will not need more than one charge with a modern EV. They could literally buy vehicles already in production from major manufacturers and have more than enough range.

  A 200-mile-range EV will still have enough rang

• Re:

  Sane rational thinking, and you got modded down. A lot of short minded people don't realize that long life vehicle designs have to be well proven before even being considered for adoption by someone the size of the USPS.
  
  People that lease a new Tesla every two years don't understand this.
  
  Hybrids would probably work, but again long term reliability isn't proven (we are talking service life of decades not years), plus equipping and certifying all the mechanics to maintain high voltage batteries and compo

  • Re:

    The vehicles they are purchasing get less then seven (yes, really seven) miles per gallon of gasoline which cost about $3/gallon at the time they made the decision. Now its $5/gallon and only going up. Even if all of the doomsday scenarios of hybrid vehicles came to fruition, the gasoline savings alone would be enough to offset any additional maintenance costs or early replacement costs. Doubly true if the early replacements are even more fuel efficient.