There are currently varying figures regarding the rollout of USPS’s electric fleet. That is because observers often distinguish between letter delivery and parcel delivery, as USPS operates a state-backed monopoly in the letter sector and receives government funding for it. However, the expansion of the electric vehicle fleet remains a point of contention within the Trump administration, even though the US Senate blocked a Republican attempt to halt the electric rollout in June.
In any case, the news agency Reuters now reported on an update provided by USPS to Congress, stating that over 2,600 electric vehicles are already in operation for mail delivery. Of these battery-electric vans, 612 are the specially developed Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) model from manufacturer Oshkosh Defense, which is already in operation at 15 locations. USPS ordered over 50,000 units of the NGDV, with half set to be battery-electric and the remainder powered by internal combustion engines.
In total, the US Postal Service already deploys over 2,600 battery-electric vehicles for mail delivery, as outlined in the letter to the US Congress. The remaining units consist of 2,010 Ford E-Transit electric vans. However, USPS has purchased significantly more of this model: a total of 8,700, as Reuters reports. The postal service initially ordered more than 9,000 units. Unfortunately, the current report does not specify what the additional E-Transits will be used for, but they are likely to be deployed primarily in parcel delivery.
“We are deploying (battery electric vehicles) to routes and delivery units where the BEVs will save us money relative to internal combustion vehicles,” USPS government relations chief Peter Pastre said in the November 17 letter, which Reuters had access to.
A recent article in the USPS employee magazine also addresses the modernisation of the vehicle fleet. It states, with slight variations, that USPS has already integrated over 35,000 new vehicles into its fleet, including 8,500 with electric drives. This is slightly fewer than the figures mentioned above for the electric vehicles from Ford and Oshkosh (a total of 9,312 units). However, the letter to the US Congress does not explicitly state that all the Ford vehicles have already been integrated into the fleet, which could explain the discrepancy.
Also of interest: the employee magazine states that USPS plans to integrate around 106,000 new vehicles by 2028, including 45,000 battery-electric delivery vehicles of the specialised Oshkosh NGDV model and 21,000 commercially available battery-electric vehicles.
reuters.com, usps.com
This article was first published by Florian Treiß for electrive’s German edition.
