Love to see these, and I'm glad the people actually using them are liking them.

Article could have done without this hand job for DeJoy, though:

Once fully deployed, they’ll represent one of the most visible signs of the agency’s 10-year, $40 billion transformation led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who’s also renovating aging facilities, overhauling the processing and transportation network, and instituting other changes.

DeJoy had to be pressed to not go forward with the purchase of new gas-powered ones, so I would hardly attribute this to him:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and climate hawk Democrats in Congress are pressing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to backtrack on the purchase of thousands of gasoline-powered U.S. Postal Service vehicles,

The line about "renovating aging facilities", overhauling the logistics network, and "instituting other changes" has quite a bit of whitewashing as well:

Last March, the Postal Service unveiled a 10-year cost-cutting plan that would involve the closure of 18 mail-sorting facilities nationwide, consolidating the closed facilities’ services to other cities in their regions. The plan sparked outrage within the American Postal Workers Union, with leaders saying the planned cutbacks and consolidations would hurt service.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/593413-democrats-press-postmaster-to-go-with-electric-vehicles/

Electric mail trucks make so much sense. The sort of stop-and-go driving they do is murder on internal combustion engines, and the old trucks had to do a ton of engineering to make them reliable despite that sort of abuse. But for an electric it's no big deal.

I love the design of the new mail trucks. They're unique and charming, like something from an animated movie. I think kids are going to love them.

Initially 10% were supposed to be electric (despite 95% of postal routes being within the electric NGDV's range).

The EPA and a couple senators got mad and it was increased to 20% electric allocation.

Then CA, NY and DC cities got mad and filed lawsuits, allocation was increased to 50% electric.

Inflation reduction act threw in an extra $3bn and fleet is projected to be 75% electric as of Dec 2022.

Sounds like a lot of work but happy it worked out in the end

Considering what they are currently using, i'm sure anything designed after 1985 would have received rave reviews from carriers.

Ugly looking things, but so is the LLV. The design is already growing on me, and I guarantee that after a few years on the road, they'll become just as iconic as the LLV.

Good news (no thanks to de Joy). Those are adorkable.

Also, in an unfortunate coincidence, a mail truck broke down in front of my place yesterday, so the need is real.

At least Elon didn't get this job. Imagine what he'd have people come up with instead!

I was shocked to hear Dejoy getting credit for this, but securing that 3 billion dollar investment in the USPS charging infrastructure didn’t break into the news cycle.

Still no idea about where they are with eliminating those sorting machines right before an election, but credit where credit is due, I guess.

What's wrong with "off-the-shelf" electric vans?
I'm talking from the european point of view.

Honestly, if it has any level of air conditioning it will be a hit.

Current vehicles have windows and (sometimes) a fan.

I think they look cool in an odd way. I've seen someone compare it to some kind of random vehicle that Akira Toriyama would draw lmao. I feel like the fleet update was long overdue, since the old LLV has a 3 speed automatic and no air conditioning. I know that some places started buying Ram Vans and Ford Transit Connects to replace the LLV, but its good to have a purpose built vehicle.

Can’t wait for the inevitable safety issues and flips and other bullshit accompanied when the government can’t just buy market products for basic tasks and has to engage with special vendors instead. Just drive fucking consumer vans around.

Did it have to be so ugly?